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 [...]

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 them, [...]

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 disgrace [...]

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 wall.
Additionally, [...]

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 fantastic [...]

In anticipation of Sonia Sotomayor’s first oral argument next week, C-SPAN has revealed a 10-minute excerpt of interviews with several Supreme Court Justices. C-SPAN had previously announced that October 4-12 would be “Supreme Court Week” featuring interviews with each of the Justices, but it has announced just excerpts from those interviews that deal with issues [...]

Marcia Coyle has an interest article at law.com about the surprising dominance of the most Elite advocates at the Supreme Court during OT08. In particular, she mentions that ‘elite’ advocates argued in 35 out of 78 cases argued during the most recent number. Also, Ted Olson’s seven arguments in one term might be the highest [...]