A Note on the Final Summer Orders List
on Sep 2, 2006 at 2:57 pm
Lyle reports immediately below on the Court’s issuance of its final orders list for the summer. Some had anticipated that the Court would grant certiorari in a number of cases on that list in order to “fill out” the final week of its December argument calendar. In 1999, when the Court faced the same docketing issue — not enough cases before the summer recess to fill the December calendar — it had issued such “summer grants.” On September 10 of that year, the Court issued an orders list granting cert. in 6 cases. (It was rumored, but never confirmed, that the Justices were able to choose those cases while they were away from Washington because they unanimously agreed that each was certworthy on the basis of memoranda.) This Term, the Court had attempted to signal informally that it did not intend to issue summer grants, and today it did not. The next orders list for this year will be issued at the end of September. The Court could schedule some of the cases from that list for the December calendar (by ordering heavily expedited briefing) or instead could eliminate or limit the second week of its December argument calendar.
