State of the Term
on Dec 10, 2005 at 4:46 pm
On Monday, the Court will issue the final Orders List of 2005. Cases granted on that list will be argued in April. Of the 12 April argument slots, 3 have already been filled. As a consequence, this term’s argument calendar will almost certainly be filled with cases selected in the 3 January 2006 conferences (Jan. 6, 13, and 20).
Of the 32 cases argued thus far, 7 have been decided. Assuming that no new opinions are released Monday, the Court will be on the same pace as in recent terms. Before the Winter recess, 9 argued cases were decided in OT2004 and 7 argued cases cases were decided in OT2003.
The interesting question regarding opinion writing involves Justice O’Connor. She is the only member of the Court to have issued majority opinions from both the October (Schaffer v. Weast) and November (Lockhart v. U.S.) sittings. (Interestingly, the Chief Justice did not merely assign Justice O’Connor wholly unanimous decisions that could be issued very quickly with perfect confidence (i.e., before she will presumably leave in January 2006), but rather relied on the other opinion writers to circulate concurrences and dissents promptly.) The open question is whether Lockhart is Justice O’Connor’s final opinion.
