The Lucky Ones: Cert Grants 2016

Sixteen. That is the number of cases that the Supreme Court is currently slated to hear in the 2016 Term.  This number in itself is exceptionally low for this time of year, although in terms of absolute case grants it is not exponentially far behind years past  (see below). For those who follow the Supreme…

A Growing Fracture in the Death Penalty

Under Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court has revisited the issue of capital punishment on numerous occasions.  Just in terms of overall cases, the Court has ruled on 23 since the beginning of the 2005 Term (habeas cases where the Court granted cert and ruled on the merits simultaneously are excluded from this count).  These…