The Supreme Court will hand down the final three opinions of the term tomorrow when it holds its last public session before its summer recess. The Court will also bid farewell to Justice Souter, as it will likely be his last time being seen publicly as a sitting justice. The three cases are Ricci v. [...]

The Court issued a press release in which Justice Souter’s colleages expressed their best wishes towards him. I’ve reprinted them in full below: STATEMENTS FROM THE SUPREME COURT REGARDING JUSTICE DAVID H. SOUTER’S RETIREMENT May 1, 2009 Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.: Justice Souter has served with great distinction on the Court for nearly [...]

Justice Souter has officially given President Obama notice of his intent to retire at the end of the current term. His notification seemed to suggest that he will not remain in his position until his successor is seated. Thanks to SCOTUSblog, we can see the Court’s press release here and Justice Souter’s letter here. You [...]

It would be naive to think that Justice Souter’s replacement won’t have a major impact on the future of the Supreme Court. At a minimum, if President Obama were to simply hit the refresh button on Justice Souter and replace him with a 55-year old version of himself, the liberal wing of the Court would [...]

The AP wire is reporting on a possible nominees to replace Justice Souter. Most news sources are reporting that President Obama will nominate a woman. He is also under considerable pressure to nominate a minority candidate, and there are only a handful of nominees to meet both of those criteria. Here is the AP list [...]

Several sources are reporting that Justice Souter will retire at the end of the term (NBC here). It isn’t terribly surprising, ATL had been reporting that he hasn’t hired terms for OT09 and UTR reported on a clandestine meeting between Justice Souter and Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Assuming that the [...]

In US v. Navajo Nation, the Court affirmed their decision from six years ago to limit the royalties that the Native American tribe could collect from coal deals made several decades ago. Justice Souter filed a brief concurrence, printed here in its entirety: I am not through regretting that my position in United States v. [...]

Above the Law is reporting that Justice Souter hasn’t hired any clerks for OT09 and suggests that it may hint towards his retirement. I think this is an example of ATL jumping the gun and overrating their skill as investigative journalists. The idea of late hiring isn’t totally unfounded though. Just last year, ATL posted [...]

(Nearly) every majority opinion features a short introduction before it jumps into the standard I, II, III, IV, etc structure. Some Justices simply introduce the facts very briefly (Scalia), while others discuss the procedural history (Thomas), and others discuss the underlying issue in the case (Souter.) I took a look at all of the cases [...]

The use footnotes has been a topic of quiet conversation around the judiciary for some time now. One group of Judges and practitioners (and an even larger percentage of students) find them to be burdensome and often unnecessary. Others think they serve as useful guides and make opinions more readable. Footnotes largely come in two [...]