Speaking at the Tenth Circuit Conference, Justice Gorsuch tied the Court's declining output to the declining number of appeals being filed with the justices. There's one *big* flaw with that claim.
Today, September 9th, we celebrate “National When Pigs Fly Day”.
“National When Pigs Fly Day is a day for dreaming big and thinking about possibilities. It’s a day to imagine a future that may seem impossible or absurd and take small steps towards making it happen. It’s a day to think outside the box, take risks, and make things happen. The idea behind National When Pigs Fly Day is to make people set their sights higher and never give up.”
~ from National Today website
Love your Monday posts! When you explain at the beginning what you post when, you said you “post every Monday (including holidays like today)”, so I wondered what today’s holiday was, & looked it up. I thought it was great to see that today we are celebrating hope & that all things are possible! Cheerful news that democracy will win out & gloom, doom, & fascism will be soundly defeated! 🤩🤩🤩
Perhaps they take fewer paid cases via the normal cert route because their time is increasingly taken up ruling on "emergency" filings? Which, of course, is a problem of their own creation.
IANAL why did congress remove the mandatory requirement to hear a certain number of cases? You refer to BIA is that Bureau of Indian Affairs? As to the number of ifp cases declining could it be that prisoners have given up hope of that the SCOTUS will provide justice? Thank you for your excellent work. Time to pick up Shadow Docket!
I took a look at the S Ct Journal for for 1988–2022 (cases docketed during term: paid cases), and then for 2023 used the figure 1375 (there is a 23-1375 docketed, but no 23-1376). For OT1988–OT1999, my data show over 2000 paid cases docketed each term except OT1990, but your chart seems to show fewer than 2000 in each of those terms.
When I graph the data and add a linear trend line, I see a pretty notable decline in paid cases.
As the post notes, there *was* a decline in paid cases between the 1990s and the early 2000s. But by the mid-2000s, the total paid docket had stabilized between 1481 and 1741 (with some back-and-forth between those poles), a range encompassing *every* term between OT03 and OT21. Just to say that slightly differently, if your baseline is the early 2000s (and treating OT2022 as an outlier), there just hasn't been anywhere near the kind of drop-off in paid cases that would explain the drop-off in rulings in paid cases.
And if the point is that paid cases have declined significantly since the 1990s, that's undoubtedly *true*; it just doesn't explain why the Court's output of merits rulings has declined so significantly only in the last few years.
At some point it would be good for Steve or someone to do an analysis and explanation of the manner in which Justices select or are selected to speak at Circuit Judicial Conferences. It appears that the Conservative Judges only attend Conferences like the 10th which are generally sympathetic to their positions. The Liberal Justices seem less selective but rarely show up --if ever--in the 5th and the 10th Circuit Conferences for example. A cynic might conclude that Gorsuch 's request for lawyers to file more petitions would not have been made at the DC-4th Circuit Conference. Then of course there are Justices -- ie Thomas--- who does not seem to attend very many, if any, Circuits; is that because he does not get invited or is it that he cant be bothered trying to explain his positions such as they are?
Valentina is right; usually (although there have been some recent exceptions), the norm is that the Circuit Justice for that circuit shows up for the Circuit Conference. So Gorsuch at CA10 and Kagan at CA9 is business as usual in those respects. I'd like it if these appearances were more publicly accessible, but there's nothing inherently shady about the specific circuit conferences at which particular justices are speaking.
Today, September 9th, we celebrate “National When Pigs Fly Day”.
“National When Pigs Fly Day is a day for dreaming big and thinking about possibilities. It’s a day to imagine a future that may seem impossible or absurd and take small steps towards making it happen. It’s a day to think outside the box, take risks, and make things happen. The idea behind National When Pigs Fly Day is to make people set their sights higher and never give up.”
~ from National Today website
Love your Monday posts! When you explain at the beginning what you post when, you said you “post every Monday (including holidays like today)”, so I wondered what today’s holiday was, & looked it up. I thought it was great to see that today we are celebrating hope & that all things are possible! Cheerful news that democracy will win out & gloom, doom, & fascism will be soundly defeated! 🤩🤩🤩
I love this. If only I had meant it, and it wasn't just accidentally leaving that line in from last week's (Labor Day) post. :-)
Figured that’s what happened & so easy to do! But thanks to your inadvertent post, I received a positive message, much needed today, so all is well.
One of the Trump justices insulting our intelligence with a misleading argument? How surprising!
Perhaps they take fewer paid cases via the normal cert route because their time is increasingly taken up ruling on "emergency" filings? Which, of course, is a problem of their own creation.
IANAL why did congress remove the mandatory requirement to hear a certain number of cases? You refer to BIA is that Bureau of Indian Affairs? As to the number of ifp cases declining could it be that prisoners have given up hope of that the SCOTUS will provide justice? Thank you for your excellent work. Time to pick up Shadow Docket!
I took a look at the S Ct Journal for for 1988–2022 (cases docketed during term: paid cases), and then for 2023 used the figure 1375 (there is a 23-1375 docketed, but no 23-1376). For OT1988–OT1999, my data show over 2000 paid cases docketed each term except OT1990, but your chart seems to show fewer than 2000 in each of those terms.
When I graph the data and add a linear trend line, I see a pretty notable decline in paid cases.
My chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQV-ST2UWm0b8HMSFb6CHc9fNCvJvfdTAcww7CaRa5WrhqEpQi6_60iq4x6X8bcjTYBBCjxF4nb6xYf/pubchart?oid=1804057280&format=interactive
As I just responded on Twitter:
As the post notes, there *was* a decline in paid cases between the 1990s and the early 2000s. But by the mid-2000s, the total paid docket had stabilized between 1481 and 1741 (with some back-and-forth between those poles), a range encompassing *every* term between OT03 and OT21. Just to say that slightly differently, if your baseline is the early 2000s (and treating OT2022 as an outlier), there just hasn't been anywhere near the kind of drop-off in paid cases that would explain the drop-off in rulings in paid cases.
And if the point is that paid cases have declined significantly since the 1990s, that's undoubtedly *true*; it just doesn't explain why the Court's output of merits rulings has declined so significantly only in the last few years.
At some point it would be good for Steve or someone to do an analysis and explanation of the manner in which Justices select or are selected to speak at Circuit Judicial Conferences. It appears that the Conservative Judges only attend Conferences like the 10th which are generally sympathetic to their positions. The Liberal Justices seem less selective but rarely show up --if ever--in the 5th and the 10th Circuit Conferences for example. A cynic might conclude that Gorsuch 's request for lawyers to file more petitions would not have been made at the DC-4th Circuit Conference. Then of course there are Justices -- ie Thomas--- who does not seem to attend very many, if any, Circuits; is that because he does not get invited or is it that he cant be bothered trying to explain his positions such as they are?
Real question: Don't they just go to their own regular Circuit(s)?
Valentina is right; usually (although there have been some recent exceptions), the norm is that the Circuit Justice for that circuit shows up for the Circuit Conference. So Gorsuch at CA10 and Kagan at CA9 is business as usual in those respects. I'd like it if these appearances were more publicly accessible, but there's nothing inherently shady about the specific circuit conferences at which particular justices are speaking.
Your dedication is amazing, wish I had more time to follow. God bless