We are three weeks away from the First Monday in October which means that the Supreme Court will soon be back in session.  Putting to the side the continued questions about the ethical failings of certain ultra-conservative justices (who unfortunately would never be convicted by the Senate even in the unlikely event that the more ethically-challenged Republican caucus in the House would actually allow articles of impeachment to pass), that means time to look ahead to the politically-significant cases on this year’s docket.

For a brief refresher, during its annual term, the U.S. Supreme Court sits in seven argument sessions.  Each of these argument sessions lasts for two weeks.  After five of these argument sessions, the U.S. Supreme Court takes a two-week break (with longer breaks over the holidays and after the January argument session).   Typically, for ease of convenience, the sessions are referred to as the October, November, December, January, February, March, and April sessions even though some sessions will begin in one month and conclude in another month (like the November session this year which will begin on October 30).  During the argument session, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  If one of those days is a holiday, that day is skipped.  There is no firm rule (as the Supreme Court will make adjustments if the docket requires it), but a “full” docket will have two arguments in the morning on each day.  Subject to adjustment if a third party (usually the Solicitor General if a case involves a federal statute) is permitted to argue, the party that lost below gets thirty minutes to argue and answer questions followed by thirty minutes for the party that won below followed by a brief rebuttal argument by the party that lost below.

On the Friday before the argument session, the justices meet to review pending petitions for review and to finalize any opinions to be released the following week.  There are similar conferences on the Fridays on the weeks in which there are arguments at which the justices also discuss the arguments that were heard that week and take an initial vote on those cases which is used to assign a justice to write an opinion.  On the Mondays of argument week (and the Monday after the argument week), the Supreme Court releases on order list announcing the decision on pending petitions for review.   In the early part of the term, there might be a separate list announcing the cases accepted for review on Friday to give the parties additional time to start preparing their briefs (the written arguments on the case) as the time schedule gets rather tight for completing the briefs before the oral argument.  Because of those time limits on the written briefs, the January argument session is effectively the cut-off date for a case being heard during the term.  If review is granted after January, the case is held for the following term.  Thus, the cases that we are about to discuss are those that the Supreme Court granted review on between February and June.  (On rare occasions, as it did for one case this year, the Supreme Court may add a case during its summer recess, but the norm is that — other than emergency matters — the period between July 1 and October 1 is quiet.)  The cases that they will accept (some of which may be discussed in Part III of this preview) in the next several weeks will be argued in the second half of this term. Continue Reading...