In normal years, the Supreme Court would probably have wrapped up business for the term by now.  It has been a long time since the last time that the Supreme Court was still issuing opinions in an argued case after June.  There is still a chance that the Supreme Court might finish this term by June 30, but we are getting mixed messages from the court.  (I do expect to see opinions in all of the cases before the Supreme Court recesses, but there is a chance that some cases could be set for reargument in the fall.)

On the one hand, we have yet to get any opinions from the May arguments.  While the May arguments were two weeks later than the usual time for the April arguments, it is usual to have some of the April opinions by the early part of June.  We also have not seen the pace of opinions pick up.  In the last weeks of the term, it is not unusual to see three or more opinion days per week, and multiple opinions on each opinion day.   At the present time, while we have had second opinion days for the last two weeks, we have only gotten a total of five opinions over the last two weeks (as opposed to the more usual eight to ten opinions per week).  And the Supreme Court has only announced two opinion days for this upcoming week.

On the other hand, the Supreme Court has announced that they will have a conference on Wednesday and release orders on Thursday (rather than the normal Monday order day).  That sounds like Wednesday could be the “wrap-up” conference. Continue Reading...