The Supreme Court may be on summer recess but that doesn’t mean the justices are free from work-related obligations. Throughout the year some of the most significant decisions the justices make are performed unilaterally. The justices are each assigned to a certain geographic region associated with a judicial circuit or circuits and by virtue of…
Category: justices
Will the Trump Administration Receive Another Legal Blow When The Court Decides on the Travel Ban’s Constitutionality?
The Supreme Court already agreed to hear many significant cases in the fall 2017 term. Among these is one of the most important tests of executive power the Court has ever heard. This case, consolidated as Trump. v. International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), involves the administration’s travel ban – specifically Executive Order No. 13780 –…
Justice Gorsuch: What We Know and What We Should Expect
Justice Gorsuch is just over two months into his tenure on the Supreme Court. There are many unknowns regarding how he will judge at this level. The cases he will decide on the Supreme Court are predominately different from those he saw on the 10th Circuit. There is also an intuition that circuit court judges’…
A New Way of Defining Oral Argument Terrain
Oral arguments are one of the more empirically studied areas of Supreme Court decision making. This may make intuitive sense. Oral arguments are one of the few moments where the justices’ decision making process transpires before members of the public. Audio of these arguments is recorded and accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Video…well…
Gorsuch’s First Majority Opinion and Some Comparisons
This post contains information on the split votes in the Roberts Court Justices’ first decisions’, the days between oral argument and their first decisions, and the lower court that ruled prior to the Supreme Court in each decision. Of the justices on the Court (and Justice Scalia), three had non-unanimous first opinions. Ginsburg had the…
Why Justice Kennedy May Not Leave The Court Right Now
The Supreme Court is not an institution with regular turnover. Since the Justices have life tenure, many stay on well into old age and often for decades. The Justices are insulated in their positions for life and there is little incentive to move to other jobs. In fact, the last Justice to leave the Court…
The First Batch of Decisions Each Term
Through the first thirty-five slip-opinions of the Supreme Court’s 2016 term there are notable similarities and differences from the Court’s prior terms. All decisions so far this term were determined by eight Justices or fewer as Justice Gorsuch has yet to sign on to a majority or separate slip-opinion (Beckles v. United States, for instance…
The Justices in Oral Arguments 2016
Supreme Court oral arguments are the only times that litigators directly and verbally interact with the Justices about pending cases. The scholarship on whether these arguments factor into decision outcomes is mixed with some suggesting that the Justices come into oral arguments with predefined views in most cases while others suggesting that a variety of…
How Justice Thomas’ Discontent Channels Justice Douglas
Over the past year the Supreme Court has in many ways lacked consistency. Its membership has changed, there was a long period of uncertainty as to the future ideological balance of the Court, and with this uncertain future the Court looked like it might make its first strong shift to the left since the Warren…
The New Normal: Justice Gorsuch’s First Week of Supreme Court Oral Arguments
In some ways, this was just another week for the Supreme Court. The Court released decisions with the Court’s right splitting with the Court’s left. Orders were set forth in many petitions pending before the Court. The Justices heard seven oral arguments. But there was a new voice in the proceedings. A voice that sought…
Justices, Tenure, and What to Expect Moving Forward
A ninth Justice sits on the Supreme Court today for oral arguments for the first time in over a year. Justice Gorsuch at 49 years of age has the potential to fill the seat previously occupied by Justice Scalia for years to come. Gorsuch is on the younger end of the age spectrum for Supreme…
How Will Gorsuch Decide on Cases from the Supreme Court’s April Calendar?
Recently confirmed Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch will be thrown into the middle of the 2017 oral argument season with the Court’s April hearings calendar beginning on April 17th. One of the first questions that has already generated speculation is how Gorsuch will rule on cases this Term. This post adds some insight into how…
Empirical SCOTUS 