In Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, the Supreme Court on Monday considered whether federal courts of appeals should make their own determination on whether an asylum seeker experienced persecution, or leave it to the Board of Immigration Appeals, in a case that will clarify the circuit courts’ roles in the immigration system. 

On Wednesday, Dec. 3, in Olivier v. City of Brandon, Mississippi, the Supreme Court will consider whether individuals can challenge a law as unconstitutional and seek to protect themselves from its future enforcement if they’ve previously been punished for violating the law. 

Empirical SCOTUS is a recurring series by Adam Feldman that looks at Supreme Court data, primarily in the form of opinions and oral arguments, to provide insights into the justices’ decision making and what we can expect from the court in the future.

When Daniel Webster stood before the Supreme Court in 1824 to argue Gibbons v. Ogden, over the court’s power to regulate interstate commerce, he spoke for hours across multiple days. In the landmark 1819 case of McCulloch v. Maryland, the oral arguments stretched for four days. The Dartmouth College case, which was argued a year before and delved deep into the Constitution’s contracts clause, consumed three full days of the court’s time. As former U.S. Solicitor General Seth Waxman once  observed, “no advocate today will ever have the opportunity to perform in the arena [advocates such as] Webster commanded.” 

The ethnic milestones and makeup of the Supreme Court have long been topics of fascination, from the notion of a “Jewish seat” filled by those who followed Justice Louis Brandeis as the first Jewish justice in 1916 to the recognition that Justice Antonin Scalia received as the first Italian American on the court in 1986 to Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s embrace of her role since 2009 as the first Latina to serve. Less attention has been paid to the court’s considerable Irish connections.

ScotusCrim is a recurring series by Rory Little focusing on intersections between the Supreme Court and criminal law.

The Supreme Court has only eight cases scheduled for oral argument over two weeks this December. (You can listen to their oral arguments live, here.) Two civil cases will attract much media attention: Trump v. Slaughter (addressing the executive, legislative, and judicial branch powers to regulate the removal or reinstatement of federal officials) and NRSC v. FEC (are monetary political campaign limits on “coordinated party expenditures” constitutional?). But as is often the case, a significant portion of the December docket is comprised of arguments related to criminal law. Of those four cases, Hamm v. Smith, a death penalty case, is likely to attract the most public attention – but Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, largely unnoticed by the popular media, will affect far more cases in our legal system.