Where Are the SCOTUS Opinions?

October Time period 2022 continues to be a time period of longer arguments and fewer opinions. The Supreme Court docket has issued fewer opinions at this level in its time period than throughout any time period previously century, though it hears far fewer circumstances.

Lawrence Hurley of NBC Information has the main points:

Again in 1923, the Supreme Court docket had issued 157 rulings by Might 1 in a time period that began the earlier fall.

On the identical date a century later, the present justices, going through a firestorm of scrutiny on a number of fronts, have disposed of simply 15 circumstances, fueling hypothesis about why they’re falling behind.

Actually, the courtroom has determined fewer circumstances at this level of the time period — which begins every October and ends in June — than at any time within the final 100 years, in response to numbers compiled by Supreme Court docket stats guru Adam Feldman.

There may be one massive caveat: The courtroom hears oral arguments in considerably fewer circumstances now than it did in earlier a long time. Within the 1922-23 time period, the courtroom heard 205 circumstances, famous Lee Epstein, a political scientist on the College of Southern California Gould College of Regulation. This time period it was a mere 59.

The story notes a number of potential causes of the Court docket’s slower efficiency: the leak investigation, the necessity to take care of filings on the “emergency docket” (aka the “shadow docket”), and the dispropportionate share of circumstances that tackle advanced quesitons prone to splinter the justices.

It additionally seems that justices have been writing extra. Because the variety of majority opinions has dropped, the variety of concurrences and dissents seems to have held regular. In October Time period 2005, as an illustration, there have been 95 concurrences and dissents for 82 majority opinions. Final time period there have been additionally 95 concurrences and dissents, however solely 57 majority opinions.

To date this time period the Court docket has heard argument in 60 circumstances, deciding 13 and dismissing another. That leaves 46 circumstances to be determined (or in any other case resolved). The Court docket has not introduced its subsequent opinion day.