The Supreme Court issued six more opinions this week, bringing the total number of cases decided to thirty-eight. There are still 23 cases, which is a considerable number if the court is to complete its work by the end of June.
As was the case two weeks ago, case adjudication rates are on par with last semester but well behind the decision rates we have observed in previous years. Theoretically, there are nine potential opinion days left in June (leaving aside the Juneteenth holiday), but as of this writing, the Court does not plan to issue any more opinions before June 20. To some comments first week of July. (It is unusual for a court to issue an opinion after July 4, although this happened overtime in 2019 due to Covid-19.)
The Court’s opinions still display a surprising degree of unity, although (as expected) we are starting to see more disagreement as the justices issue opinions in more difficult cases. Judges have reached agreement in 25 of the 38 cases decided so far (about two-thirds of the disputed cases), but some of them have serious disagreements on the rationale and from now on , the proportion of consistent cases will almost certainly fall.
While we’ve seen a lot of consistent cases, we haven’t seen many 6-3 cases decided along ideological lines. There have been nine 6-3 decisions so far, but only four have come along traditional left-right lines. Only two cases this semester have been decided 5-4.
As far as personal opinion authors are concerned, this is where we stand.
- Sotomayor: 7
- Thomas: 6
- Alito: 4
- Kagan: 4
- Kavanaugh: 4
- Jackson: 4
- Barrett: 3
- Gorsuch: 2
- CJ Roberts: 2
Each kurim also has two opinions, which in some cases may be combined into one opinion (e.g. two opinions) Chevron case, ruthless and Loper-Bright It will almost certainly be decided by a single opinion).
Of the remaining cases, most will be written by conservative judges. Liberal justices make up one-third of the court but are responsible for 40 percent of the court’s majority opinions to date. I wouldn’t be surprised if the liberal justices write no more than four or five of the remaining majority.
For those of you reading this, here are some purely speculative predictions about what we might see. I suspect the Dean has made quite a few major decisions, in large part because he has written only two opinions for the Court to date. I can see he has Laxmi, ruthless (this Chevron case), Moore, and the Trump immunity decision. I doubt Judge Gorsuch SEC v. Jarkesy, Murthy, and FisherI would be surprised if Kavanaugh doesn’t accept Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency. i have nothing to do with Network selectionexcept that I think both cases would cause confusion.
Of course, these predictions are not worth more than the price you paid for them, and we should find out soon enough whether I’m right.
