Supreme Court Justices Are Influential Political Figures
UK’s The Telegraph created lists of the 100 most influential conservatives and the most influential liberals leading into the 2008 elections. John Roberts made number #8 on the conservative list,...
View ArticleDon’t Speak
The WSJ Law Blog predicted that Justice Thomas would speak this morning during oral arguments. Unfortunately, they were wrong. I expected him to speak last year during one of the school board cases or...
View ArticleWhich Justice Is The Most Talkative?
Two months into the term, the Supreme Court has held oral arguments in 19 different cases. After reading a few of the transcripts, I thought it would be interesting to see which Justices spoke most...
View ArticleWho Is The Funniest Justice?
After finding the most talkative Justice, I was interested in finding the funniest Justice. According to my calculations, there were 51 total references to (Laughter.) in the court’s first two months...
View ArticleThoughts on Boumediene Oral Arguments
Oral Arguments took place this morning in Boumediene v. Bush and its sister case, Al-Odah v. US. Because of the heightened interest in the case, the Supreme Court opted to expedite the delivery of the...
View ArticleRandy Newman Critiques The Court During Apple Keynote
Randy Newman sang a rather interesting song at the conclusion of the Macworld Keynote Speech. Here was the relevant portion of his song: Its pissing me off a little that the Supreme Court is going to...
View ArticleSurprisingly Candid McCain and Obama Discuss Current SCOTUS Makeup,...
Earlier tonight, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama joined Pastor Rick Warren at his California megachurch for an event pegged as “The Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency.” The interviews, each...
View ArticleJoe Biden and the Judiciary
Barack Obama has chosen a running mate that shares his views on fiscal policy, healthcare, education, the war on terror, and…Clarence Thomas? It seems that the presumptive Democratic nominee, fresh off...
View ArticleJustices Stevens and Thomas Discuss Death Penalty Proportionality
On Monday the court denied review in Walker v. Georgia, a case revolving around the court’s proportionality standard applied to the death penalty. The court has long struggled to find an adequate means...
View ArticleCourt Appears to Deny Stay in Donofrio v. Wells
The Supreme Court appears to have declined review in a case filed against the Secretary of State of New Jersey that sought to nullify Barack Obama’s election to the presidency. The case, which centers...
View ArticleFishing for a Story: How the Media Is Reading Too Much Into Referrals of...
Over the course of the past week, both the blogosphere and mainstream media have been spending quite a bit of time over at the Supreme Court rumor mill. There has been a lot of buzz about two cases...
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Oral Argument Stats Posted
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...
View ArticleFootnotes in Supreme Court Opinions
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...
View ArticleSupreme Introductions
(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...
View ArticleSupreme Court Hands Down Opinion in Federal Pre-emption case
The Supreme Court handed down an opinion today in Wyeth v. Levine (here). (29) Wyeth v. Levine Docket Filing | Questions Presented Case Number: 06-1249 On Appeal From: SC-VT Date Argued: November 3,...
View ArticleSupreme Court Releases Four Opinions; Ten Remain
The Supreme Court released four divided opinions today including a very interesting case rejecting an inmate’s right to test the DNA used to convict him more than 15 years ago. Justice Thomas was the...
View ArticleEnd of Term Thoughts
While I will readily accept that my end-of-term comments are even less relevant than usual because they are so belligerently late, I still think I have a few interesting things to point out about the...
View ArticleA Notable Milestone for Justice Thomas
Today, February 22, 2010, marks the four-year anniversary of the last time Justice Thomas asked a question during oral arguments. His silence from the bench is well-document and has been discussed by...
View ArticleJustice Thomas’ History at Oral Argument
The big news in the world of the Supreme Court today is that Justice Thomas finally spoke at oral argument. It is not clear exactly what he said — the transcript provides very little guidance — but we...
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Agreement Between Justices Scalia and Thomas During October Term 2012
Over at Twitter, Mike Sacks posted an interesting question about the agreement rate between Justices Scalia and Thomas during October Term 2012: Is it me, or have Thomas and Scalia been on opposite...
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