This has to be factually wrong. How is it that Gorsuch was able to sit immediately in the middle of a session.
People are getting it half right and half wrong.
Here is the answer to everyone’s questions:
““Justices typically retire at the end of the Court’s annual term in June, so that their successors can be confirmed over the summer before the next term begins in the fall—thereby keeping any disruption to a minimum. This time, however, Gorsuch will be joining the court midstream.
The 49-year-old jurist from Colorado is universally expected to become a reliable voice on the Court’s conservative wing. That voice will be pretty quiet at first: He won’t take part in deciding any case for which the other justices already heard oral arguments, unless the Court schedules it for rehearing next fall.””
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/justice-gorsuch-cases/522513/