Today at the Supreme Court

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,...