Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, the search for the new Solicitor General led to one of the individuals discussed as a likely candidate early on in the process. In the interim, a bevy of names were floated as possibilities including attorneys Chuck Cooper, George Conway, and Miguel Estrada. But as George Conway’s name faded…
Tag: Zubik v. Burwell
Under the Radar With GVRs
A regular yet often overlooked practice in the Supreme Court is the grant, vacate remand or GVR. A GVR is a summary disposition where, generally (although not always) based on a plenary decision, the Court grants certiorari in a case, vacates the lower court’s decision, and remands the case back to the lower court based…
Forced Judicial Restraint
When, soon after his nomination to the Supreme Court, Judge Garland was praised for his judicial restraint, this praise was not envisioned for the type of impact Judge Garland’s nomination has made on the Court so far. Similarly, no one calling for judicial restraint or decrying the Court’s judicial activism prior to 2016 expected change to come in…
Inferences From Amicus Briefs and How Justice Kennedy Continues to Rule Supreme
This post analyzes the amicus filings from this past Term in three ways. First it looks at counts of cert stage amicus filings and compares them to merits stage filings. This difference show whether the interest in a case prior to the Court granting cert paralleled the interest in the case’s outcome on the merits. …
SCOTUS Scorecard 2015/2016 Pt. 1: Experience is Key
Now that the 2015 Supreme Court is complete, it is a perfect time to inspect the case outcomes. My previous post examined the winning attorneys from each oral argument. Many of the attorneys involved are from a small division of firms and groups focused on Supreme Court practice (or from larger firms with specialized appellate practices) and are…
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em Block ‘Em: A Preface to a New Post-Scalia Court Strategy?
(images via supremecourt.gov) In the biggest cases this Supreme Court Term there was one common thread – the four Justices appointed by Democratic Presidents either voted together for the winning position or (likely) voted together to cause a 4-4 split (this was a potential strategy I discussed earlier). The numbers on the Court set up…
Signs of a Gridlocked SCOTUS
Congress has historically low levels of public approval. Current Gallup Polls place Congress’ approval rating at around 18%. The Supreme Court’s approval rating tends to hover much higher – generally around the 50% level. One reason for this disparity is from sense that the Supreme Court does not engage in politics in the manner of other…
Will Ghosts of Past Decisions Come Back to Haunt This Term?
Do Supreme Court Justices abide by the Court’s past precedents in cases where such precedents are not overruled? Political Scientists have long debated this question with differing accounts based on ideological theory, strategic theory, and post-behavioralism. Without getting lost in the weeds of this debate this post takes a look at the Justices’ votes in…
The Road to Zubik, Incoherence, and Indecision
Today the Court avoided ruling on the merits in Zubik v. Burwell, a case pitting religious beliefs against government healthcare mandates, by sending the case back down to the lower courts with a per-curiam opinion. This was one of the most anticipated rulings of the Term and so this decision is perceived as a letdown for…
Oral Arguments OT 2015: A Look Back
On Wednesday April 29th the Supreme Court Justices heard their final oral argument of the Term with McDonnell v. United States. The Justices heard a total of 69 arguments from October 2015 through April 2016 (not accounting separately for consolidated dockets; links to all of the transcripts, audio, and information about all of the cases…
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