Posted on 06/13/2022 2:03:28 PM PDT by Jonty30
I was just wondering, since it appears they haven't yet.
SCOTUS FOCUS
The court’s end-of-term workload: A historical perspective
By Stephen Wermiel
on Jun 10, 2022 at 2:19 pm
Close followers of the Supreme Court have puzzled in recent days over what commentators have described as the slow pace of issuing decisions as the justices head into the final weeks of the term.
It is true that the justices came into June with 33 decisions still to be issued, or 55.9% of the 59 cases the court heard for argument. This high percentage of outstanding decisions might give some court watchers pause about whether the justices will be able to finish their work by the end of June or early July, the unofficial target for completion of the court’s work. After four decisions this week, they still have 29 to go. Theories abound that the work of the court has been delayed by divisions and distrust after the leak of an early draft decision proposing to overturn the constitutional right to abortion.
Crunching the numbers with a different historical perspective may relieve some of the concern about the path ahead for the justices this month. If one looks not at the percentage of decisions remaining but at the volume of end-of-term decisions, the picture is different.
Let’s look at the volume in comparable years across four decades. In the court’s 1981-82 term, the justices decided 141 cases compared to the this term’s expected 59. In June and the first two days of July, 1982, the justices issued a whopping 69 decisions, more than twice the number remaining for the current court. It is true that the percentage of total decisions issued in June and July that year was lower than the current figure: 48.9% compared to 55.9% now. But if the justices could scramble their way through 69 decisions 40 years ago between June 1 and July 2, the decisions remaining this June do not seem like such a daunting task.
But the court has difficult, divisive major rulings to handle right now, making everything more complicated, one might argue. There were also important and divisive rulings at the end of the court’s term in 1982, however. Half of the 69 decisions generated three or four dissenting votes, including several that were decided by a plurality rather than a majority. Important end-of-term decisions in 1982 included Nixon v. Fitzgerald (holding that the president is immune from civil liability for official acts), Rogers v. Lodge (holding that an at-large voting system for a county with a large Black population violated the equal protection clause), and New York v. Ferber (rejecting a First Amendment challenge to a state ban on the sale of child sexual-abuse material).
The 1981-82 term was not alone in seeing more June decisions than the present period. In the 1991-92 term, the total number of decisions declined from 141 to 107. In June of 1992, the justices issued 41 decisions. This was a smaller percentage of the total, 38.3%, but again, it was a higher volume of opinions than what the current court faces. In fact, the court issued 30 decisions between June 15 and June 29, 1992 — one more than the 29 cases still pending this term as we enter the middle of June. (The court has already scheduled two opinions days next week: one on Monday and another on Wednesday).
Moving forward another decade, the total number of decisions in the 2001-02 term plummeted to 76. Even with that significant decline, the court still managed to handle 27 decisions in June 2002. Although this represented only 35.5% of the total for the term, the volume of June decisions was still quite substantial.
Finally, in the 2011-12 term, the total number of decisions declined even further to 64. That term, the justices had a relatively light June workload, issuing only 16 decisions, or 25% of the total for the term.
Compared to June 2012, the current June total seems daunting. But taking a longer-range view, history suggests that the court should be more than able to manage the pace and volume of remaining decisions, even if there may be some turbulence inside the marble halls.
Do they have to rule on the RvW case or can they push it out......??
Alito’s opinion was so well written that even a lay person would agree....that it belongs in the states where the people have a voice and where it has always been.
If they do that, it would be an admission that the violence of the Left is an effective strategy for influencing the Courts.
We on the Right have thus far eschewed overt violence. This should change as a DIRECT response to the Left.
Doesn't mean that at all. They usually release most of the biggies at the end.
Yep, Roberts is hoping the intimidation will still flip a Judge. He knows where the leak is and is sitting on it IMHO.
Thanks for the information!
Yes...it does mean that - just a smidgen of common sense is required to grasp the obvious.
The protests are designed to change the initial votes to block the overturn.
As another freeper commented, SCOTUS could have easily released the official vote once the leak occurred and avoided the assassination threats to Kavanaugh, ACB and their children.
Yes, a reversal could start Civil War II or even WW III. Or, if the assassian had actually carried out his mission on Kavanaugh that could have very well triggered Civil War II.
Robert’s is busy trying to figure out what “emanating penumbras” of “stare decicis” can be used to deny the majority standing ...
Methinks stealing an election to install a senile anf incontinent puppet of the WEF has a lock on that ...
That was the point I think. This give the Dems lots of time to intimidate and make a showing of how upset they will be if the Supremes do in Roe V. Wade.
I have actually appeared before the Supreme Court and know how it actually works.
I agree. It should have but sadly didn’t. Just goes to show lack of propensity to violence on the part of conservatives.
They couldn't have. It was just a draft opinion, and it had to be circulated among the justices for word tweaks and revisions. Still possible to have an extra concurrence or two, etc..
I would not be the least bit surprised if the final opinion, or at least one of the concurrences, specifically discussed the leak and the aftermath as evidence of why the Supreme Court should not be involved in making policy, and should not have gotten involved in the issue in the first place. They'll say it is a cautionary note for the next time the Court considers writing legislation rather than just interpreting the Constitution as written.
I would not be surprised if the leak and resultant lack of trust within the Court as an institution has inhibited the ability to prepare and issue opinions as quickly as normal.
is there a chance that this opinion doesn’t get released at all this year?
I heard they were not going to release during this ‘Session’. They may release Dunn and then go on break.
Waiting til Juneteenth to help the BLM/Aunty-Fah/Anti-Constitution/Anti-Life
festivities be a truly joint celebration.
Save me a wide screen.
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