If you know of Term summaries (or even press releases) that have been published by various organizations, please email them to me.

Here is the summary prepared by Steve Shapiro of the ACLU.

Here is an analysis published by People for the American Way (Hat Tip: How Appealing).

Earlier today, we posted the annual statistics on the Term. I thought I would take a closer look at the 5-4 cases.

(Note: in this post, I’m using the term “conservative” as shorthand for “more conservative” and to refer to the Chief, and Justices O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas. And I’m using “liberal” as shorthand for “more liberal” and to refer to Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer. Those particular labels can obfuscate more than they illuminate in some contexts – in fact, the data underlying this post makes that very point – but they are useful shorthand for a blog post.)

In the 5-4 cases, the diversity among the majorities was remarkable. Fourteen different combinations formed the majority in twenty-four cases. Ten 5-4 majorities occurred in only once. Every Justice was in the majority in between twelve and fourteen 5-4 cases.

The number that jumps out at you is that the Court’s conservatives formed a 5-4 majority only five times. (Extrapolating from previous terms, the twenty-four 5-4 opinions ordinarily would produce ten to fifteen cases with the conservatives forming a majority.) In eight cases, one of the conservatives “defected” to form a majority with the liberals – four by O’Connor; three by Kennedy; and one by Scalia.

But the liberals were hardly a uniform block. In five different cases, four of the conservatives formed a majority with one of the liberals – twice by Breyer, and once each by Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg.

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Booker/Fanfan
Part I

Part II

Cutter

Grokster

Heald/Swedenburg

Kelo

Livestock Marketing

Medellin

Raich

Roper

Van Orden/McCreary County
Van Orden

McCreary County

Here are the final versions of our term wrap-up documents. Thanks to Brian Fletcher, Anisha Dasgupta, and Katie TafollaYoung for their work on them.

Here is the memo highlighting notable statistics.

Here are the voting relationships.

Here are the remaining statistics.

Here is the circuit scorecard.

Here is the final OT04 Case List.

Here is the list of next Term’s cases, according to the sitting in which each is likely to be argued.

Also, here is revised report by the Georgetown Supreme Court Institute with an array of helpful information.

In the wake of the Ten Commandments cases, the New York Times Magazine this Sunday is publishing excerpts from Noah Feldman’s forthcoming book on the “Church-State problem.” One of Feldman’s provocative theses is that the Court should be more permissive in the “religious symbolism” cases (a broad category that apparently would include not only things such as the Ten Commandments, creches and the Pledge of Allegiance, but also prayer and teaching creationism in the public schools), even to the point of permitting expressly sectarian endorsement, as long as there is no religious “coercion,” but that the Court should reassert what appear to be 1970’s-era restrictions on state funds being conveyed to religious institutions. In short: “no coercion, no money.”

This is, of course, almost the opposite of the direction the Court has been taking in recent years. It also raises many, many difficult and interesting questions, some of which are pointedly but respectfully posed by Jack Balkin over on Balkinization. Feldman’s proposal is also likely to receive a skeptical reaction from folks such as Tom Berg, who in our sub-blog and at Mirror on Justice (see also Rick Garnett’s new post here) have suggested that religious communities should focus less on the “symbolism” cases (in large part because Tom thinks there is great danger to religion when the state appropriates religious symbols) and more on securing the sort of neutrality in funding that is, for instance, suggested in Justice Thomas’s plurality opinion in Mitchell v. Helms. (Current law is governed by Justice O’Connor’s controlling concurrence in Mitchell, which prohibits the state from providing direct aid to be used for “specifically religious activities” and religious indoctrination, and which apparently also prohibits any direct monetary aid from being sent to a certain (undefined) category of religious institutions, because (in Justice O’Connor’s cryptic words) “this form of aid falls precariously close to the original object of the Establishment Clause’s prohibition.”)

There is much, much more to be said in this debate. I hope that Noah, Jack, Tom, Rick and others will weigh in over on our Ten Commandments sub-blog (where I’m cross-posting this) or in the Comments here, and/or on Balkinization and Mirror of Justice.

Richard Smith, the lead counsel for one of the principal amici supporting the respondent in the Castle Rock case, has this post entering the debate on the Discussion Board.

PrawfsBlog has this post on the end of the term and whether or not it is unlawful to threaten to seize Justice Souter’s home.

The Picker MobBlog has numerous entries on Grokster. Here is the latest one.

Here is Todd Zywicki on a recent poll citing Americans’ declining confidence in Supreme Court opinions. Also on the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr explains some Supreme Court lingo.

ACSBlog has this post on a potential Supreme Court nomination for Judge Garza of the Fifth Circuit.

On the Nomination Blog, I have a short post about Jan Crawford Greenburg’s most recent story.

From an article in the Fulton County Daily Report:

Thomas’ five-minute address included a suggestion that no member of his court was planning to retire. Since Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist announced he was being treated for thyroid cancer last fall, speculation about a court vacancy has been rampant.

Thomas noted that his court ended its term on Monday as “winds of controversy swirled about the Court’s decisions and, unfortunately, about the imagined resignations.”

After the jump are all the events wrapping up the Supreme Court Term that I know about, presented in chronological order. Please excuse any and all formatting glitches. I’m doing a lot of cutting and pasting here.

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Over on the Discussion Board, we’re hosting a debate over the Court’s decision in Castle Rock. The City’s lead attorney, John Eastman, has started the debate.

I just wanted to thank the people who worked very hard to get accurate, timely posts up on the blog yesterday; the bloggers (esp., but not exclusively, Eugene Volokh, Glenn Reynolds, Andrew Sullivan, Howard Bashman, and the folks at ABC’s The Note) that prominently linked to the blog; and the readers who brought us a record (for us) 92,000 hits according to Statcounter (and who nearly brought down our webhost at around 1015am).

Also, I wanted to thank all the terrific people who took the time to write wonderful posts on the Discussion Blog. I learned a lot.

I do think in a very small way, but a hopefully significant one, the web (lots of sites, SCOTUSblog among them) changed the Court’s relationship with the public yesterday — both in terms of how information is distributed and how the Court’s opinions are subject to a quick, sophisticated reaction. I can’t imagine the same thing happening even a year ago.

Multichannel News notices (no link available) that, “In describing the central legal issue in Brand X, the syllabus got it completely wrong, saying that information service providers like AOL and Earthlink were heavily regulated common carriers and phone companies were free from such mandates. A senior cable industry lawyer said he might bring the mistake to the court’s attention.” Thanks to the reader who passed this along.

In a 7-2 opinion authored by Justice Scalia, the Court reversed a Tenth Circuit decision that permitted a due process claim against a local government for its police department’s failure to enforce a restraining order.

Castle Rock presented two questions: (1) Whether federal law permits a procedural due process claim against a local government for failing to enforce a partial restraining order, exposing its holder to private violence; (2) If such a claim is allowed, what kind of process is required? Sixteen years earlier, the Court rejected an analogous substantive due process claim in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep’t of Social Services, but made it explicit that DeShaney created no precedent regarding a procedural due process claim of the same variety.

Justice Scalia’s majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, and Breyer, held that Gonzales could claim no property interest in the enforcement of the restraining order and declined to reach the second question. Justice Souter filed a concurrence, which Justice Breyer joined, and Justice Stevens filed a dissent, joined by Justice Ginsburg.

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Here is an extensive – although by no means exhaustive – compilation of news relating to yesterday’s rulings and retirement speculation.

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