In politics, leaked information is rather common.  It always seems that a potential proposal or policy change hits the news while it is still under consideration.  The judiciary, and particularly the Supreme Court, has been mostly immune from this practice.  The lack of solid information on what the Supreme Court has decided in any particular case before the official release of the decision leads those who follow the Supreme Court to try to read omens and clues from a variety of sources — the questions asked at oral argument, which justices have issued opinions from a particular two-week argument session, and sometimes what the justices have said in another opinion.

As we near the end of the active part of this year’s Supreme Court term, this past week saw a flood of opinions (nine opinions) leaving eleven cases to be issued presumably between Monday and July 1.  (At the present time, the Supreme Court will almost certainly be handing down some opinions on Monday, June 22.  It is unlikely that they will hand down eleven opinions on Monday.  The Supreme Court has not yet announced any other days for the next seven days.  Jf the Supreme Court is going to hand down all opinions this week, there will probably be one or two more days.  If not, we will see at least some opinions on June 29, and maybe even on June 30 or July 1.)  There were a couple of interesting Free Speech cases that I will probably post something on during the down time of July, but the big four cases of the second half of the term remain for this last push (fair housing, redistricting, health insurance subsidies, and same-sex marriage).  The big surprise this week, however came in an unexpected case, Kerry v. Din.  When this case came to the Supreme Court, it looked like a case about immigration law and the virtually unreviewable discretion of embassy staff to reject a visa request.  However, this case arose in the context of the spouse of a U.S. citizen and court watchers are now wondering what the discussion of marital rights in this case might hint about the same-sex marriage cases.