Today at the Supreme Court

My last post was made 24 days ago, on March 6, a day when the Court had a conference. As I noted, the most-relisted pending petition at the time was then Smith v. Scott , No. 24-1099, which had been relisted for the 14th time on March 2. As of today, March 30, this petition is still pending and still the most-relisted pending petition, having been relisted for the 17th time today. This means the Court will consider it again at its conference this Thursday, April 2. (Why is this conference not happening this Friday, when conferences usually happen, since there is no federal holiday on Friday? Your guess is as good as mine.) In my last post, I also noted that the second most-relisted pending petition was Reed v. Goertz , No. 24-1268. As I noted, it was relisted for the 13th time on March 2. Since then, it was relisted just one more time on March 16, before being denied on March 23, after a grand total of 14 relists. As expected given how long the delay was in this denial, three justices ...

The Court had a private conference today. A quick docket search indicates a total of 92 petitions were distributed for that conference (52 on the regular docket and 40 on the IFP docket). So this seems to mean that 92 is the maximum number of petitions the Court could dispose of in the order list we know it will issue next Monday. As has been the case for some time now, the most-relisted petition remains Smith v. Scott , No. 24-1099. It was relisted for the 14th time on March 2, this past Monday. In a close second is the same petition that has been in second place for some time now (including when I made my last post ): Reed v. Goertz , No. 24-1268. It was relisted for the 13th time on March 2. No other pending petition has been relisted more than 10 times. In third place, it's a four-way tie between the following petitions, each of which has been relisted 8 times, most recently on Monday for the conference that happened today: Foote v. Ludlow School Committee , No. 25-77. Lower co...

In my last post , I pointed out that  Smith v. Scott , No. 24-1099, was the most-relisted petition the Supreme Court had yet to dispose of. That remains true now, as does the number of times it has been relisted so far (still 11). I also noted that  Klein v. Martin , No. 25-51, and  Reed v. Goertz , No. 24-1268, were tied for second place, with 10 relists each. Well, major news, the Court finally decided the former (but not the latter) in its subsequent order list on January 26. After 10 relists, it finally did what Maryland asked it to do in Klein v. Martin : granted the state's petition for certiorari and summarily reversed the Fourth Circuit's decision granting habeas relief to someone Maryland had prosecuted for attempted murder. The per curiam here was much longer than that in Clark v. Sweeney , another Fourth Circuit summary reversal from earlier this term. In that case, the Court's per curiam took up less than four pages. But in Klein , as might be expected given ...

In the Court's order list yesterday, it denied a large number of petitions, as expected. But it did not deny any of the highly-relisted ones I had been keeping an eye on, in particular, Smith v. Scott , No. 24-1099,  Klein v. Martin , No. 25-51, and Reed v. Goertz , No. 24-1268. Instead, all of these petitions were relisted yet again. As a result, Smith v. Scott  remains the most-relisted petition that the Court still hasn't disposed of, with a total of 11 relists. As was the case in my previous post , second place remains a tie between Klein and Reed , both of which were relisted for the tenth time yesterday. However, the Court did deny numerous petitions it had relisted multiple times, almost all of which were Second Amendment challenges to the federal statute criminalizing firearm possession by convicted felons, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). For example, after six relists, the Court denied Willis v. United States , No. 25-5009. The question presented there was : "Whether 18 U.S....

On January 16, the Court had another conference, their second of 2026. Later that day, the Court released a short, unscheduled list of 4 petitions they granted .  The Court will release its next order list on its next work day, which is Tuesday, January 20 (Monday is MLK Day, which is a federal holiday). The Court will also announce opinions that day, as indicated by an unannounced update to the interactive calendar on the Court's website that occurred on January 16. Notably, this update was reported on by a number of media outlets, such as Bloomberg . Of course, most attention concerns the pending Trump tariffs case, in which oral arguments happened in November, meaning an opinion could be released at any time--or at least, on any day when the Court will announce opinions. So it is possible the Court will announce this highly anticipated decision on Tuesday. But on the other hand, when the Court indicated on Tuesday, January 6 (in a similar unannounced website calendar change) tha...

The Court quietly updated its interactive calendar on its homepage today to say that it "may" announce opinions on Friday, January 9. From what I have seen having watched the Court closely for some time now, this means it definitely will announce opinions in one or more argued cases on that date, despite the use of the word "may" suggesting that it may not do so. To illustrate the update I'm talking about, look at the screenshot below. This is the box that appears, as of today, when you click on Friday, January 9 on the interactive calendar on supremecourt.gov. The second line ("The court may announce opinions...") was not there until today. The Court has not yet announced opinions in any argued cases for the current term, even though the term started 3 months ago, and 27 cases have already been argued. So I'm not at all surprised that some decisions are going to be announced soon. (The only opinions of the court that have been announced this term,...