Updated Most of you know that the Court hears cases during two-week sessions every month from October to April. During most sessions, the Court will hear 8-12 cases and majority opinion assignments are distributed equally for each session. In other words, if there are nine cases for the October session, each justice will write one [...]

After the Court released its opinion in Perdue v. Kenny A. yesterday, there was only one case left from the October sitting: Salazar v. Buono. The only justice who hasn’t written a majority opinion from October is Justice Kennedy. Barring an incredibly surprising turn of events, Justice Kennedy will be writing the majority opinion in [...]

The Court has been criticized for releasing only four opinion going into the winter break and Linda Greenhouse even suggested that internal wrangling over Citizens United may have “sucked the air out of the term.” Maybe so, but the Court has done nothing publicly to suggest that this term is progressing differently from any other. [...]

The Supreme Court handed down only orders this morning, meaning the next possible time for it to release an opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is early next year. Several commentators, most notably John Elwood on Volokh Conspiracy and Tony Mauro for the Legal Times, have considered the possible reasons and consequences of [...]

The Court sat for its traditional “class photo” yesterday, to the apparent amusement of less than half the members of the current Court. You can also find a video taken at the loosely termed “photo shoot” here. I should note that the Court released a few different photos from the shoot and in all of [...]

The Supreme Court released its orders list from its long-conference yesterday and among the 12 cases granted is a potentially landmark ruling on the Second Amendment. The Court granted review in McDonald v. City of Chicago, a case decided by the Seventh Circuit in early-June. SCOTUSblog has a collection of cert. stage briefs that you [...]

Well, I made a mistake yesterday. Relying on the WSJ Law Blog’s onsite observer, I reported that General Kagan had worn a blue pants suit. I was wrong. In fact, the Washington Post and Above the Law are now reporting that General Kagan chose a black suit with a light blue blouse with which to [...]

For all the trivia nerds out there, I forgot to mention two important, but oft-unmentioned facts about yesterday’s argument. General Kagan opted not to wear the traditional grey morning coat that male Solicitors General wear. Instead, according to the WSJ Law Blog, she wore a blue pants suit. Of course, the writing was on the [...]

When Chief Justice Roberts first sat on the Court on October 3, 2005 in IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, he spoke twenty-four times and his first question appeared on page 15 of the transcript. Following that question, he went back and forth with Carter Phillips, a man with whom the Chief Justice was already acquainted, for [...]

To sum up my views on the oral arguments today: we saw it coming. Justice Sotomayor lined up in exactly the position she was expected take and the same goes for each of the other eight Justices. In the end, it looks like her position will be a minority one. Solicitor General Kagan did a [...]