The Associated Press is reporting that Justice Stevens has confirmed that he has hired only one clerk for OT10. Typically, Stevens hires all of his clerks at one time during the summer a year before their term begins.
As always, its hard to read too much into this. Is it possible that this was a good [...]

Judge Sotomayor’s frequent encounters with major league sports are well-documented. She also grew up near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and is a life-long fan of the Yankees.
Justice Stevens, the Court’s longest-serving member, is a long-time fan of another famous baseball team: the Chicago. He was present at the game at Wrigley Field in 1932 [...]

The Supreme Court handed down an opinion today in Wyeth v. Levine (here).

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Wyeth v. Levine
Docket Filing | Questions Presented
Case Number: 06-1249
On Appeal From: SC-VT
Date Argued: November 3, 2008
Date Decided: March 4, 2009
6-3; Affirmed
Majority: Stevens(m), Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer(c), Thomas(c)
Dissent: Alito(d), Roberts, Scalia
Days between argument and opinion: 121

The Court revisited the always familiar issue of pre-emption [...]

With the release of several opinions this week, the Court has now released 26 opinions for the term. Its time to take a look at some of the numbers:
Opinions released: 26
Cases dismissed: 21
Oldest Case: Vanden v. Discover Bank, argued October 6, 2008 (141 day ago)
Average number of days between arguments and decision: 78.31
Cases dismissed at [...]

(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 [...]

The Supreme Court handed down an opinion today in Altria Group v. Good (opinion here) which will likely open the door for state-level suits against false advertising by cigarette companies.
Justice Stevens penned the majority opinion and was joined by Justices Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer. Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion that was joined by [...]

Once again, I’ve conjured up some charts marking how often each Justice spoke during oral arguments in the first half of the term. You can find a detailed look into my methodology here but to summarize, these numbers represent the number of times ‘JUSTICE ______’ is mentioned in the oral argument transcripts posted on the [...]

The future is bleak for democrats and judicial liberals. The average age of the four conservatives is 60.75 years (Roberts(53), Scalia (72), Thomas(60), Alito(58)). The average age of the four liberals, however, is 75.7 years (Stevens(88), Souter(69), Ginsburg(75), Breyer(70)). Justice Stevens, an active octogenarian and avid tennis player who frequently reads briefs on the beach [...]

You can find the 2007 Term Case Index here.
You can find the 2006 Term Case Index here.
You can find statistics from the term here.

Cases Completed:

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Ricci v. DeStefano
Docket Filing | Questions Presented
Docket Number: 07-1428
On Appeal From: CA2
Date Argued: April 22, 2009
Date Decided: June 29, 2009
5-4; Reversed and Remanded
Majority: Kennedy(m), Roberts, Scalia(c), Thomas, Alito(c)
Dissent: Ginsburg(d), Stevens, Souter, [...]