I see in the paper today that the Supremes are going to get a case about voter ID. The case should be decided by “late June.” Of course I realize that there are several cases taken on by the court every year, but I don’t know what they do that takes six months. Reading the cases takes time. Hearing arguments takes time. Thinking and deliberating and writing opinions takes time. Why does it take six months? Thanks. xo, C.
Several cases? Try about a hundred a year. You’ve also left out that the court must give the parties time to prepare. And for every case they do take, they’ve read about and rejected 70 more.
But his point is that the oral arguments are heard often well in advance of when the decision is issued. This has nothing to do with party preparation.
But isn’t the preparation of the parties done prior to presenting a case to the court? Why should that time be considered here?
(geez, in the time it took for me to respond, someone snuck in with the same point. Gotta be quick here.)
:dubious: Your question was about the six month lag from certification to decision. Obviously part of that six months is prep time.
Ah, I think I figured out the confusion. When the court takes a case, it is a result of a petition for the court to review a lower decision. That petition takes preparation, of course, but the decision to take the case precedes the bulk of preparation for briefs and oral arguments. Clearer?
In addition to the above:
The justices meet to review the cases heard in oral argument that week. IIRC, this is done every Friday while court is in term. Based on the result, the Chief Justice or the senior justice in the majority, if the chief is not, assigns the case.
Now comes the writing of an opinion which sets forth the facts of the case and details the legal argument that leads the majority to their opinion. This often gets retailored to satisfy each of the members of the majority. Meanwhile, one or more justices is writing other opinions on the case, dissents or concurrences, setting forth their individual opinions which did not garner a majority. Normally, a law clerk drafts an opinion with the justice overseeing the results and fine-tuning the language, though occasionally a justice will decide to do his own writing. The dissenters are trying to woo away members of the majority to turn their opinion into the majority one. Negotiations between justices and their clerks can take significant time.
But while all this is going on, other cases are being heard, assigned, researched, and opinions drafted. The clerks are reading, between them, every petition for certiorari with supplemental material from the lower court decision. The justices are reading summaries by the clerks setting forth briefly the petitioners’ arguments and the clerk’s recommendation. The chief is dealing with administrative material for the court system important enough to be brought to his attention, in his capacity as Chief Justice of the United States (not “of the Supreme Court” – the last one of whom was Morrison Waite). Each justice still has a few lingering duties relevant to the Circuit(s) to which he is assigned, though of course they no longer “ride circuit” – most notably, each is singly and individually entitled to issues stays of execution in capital cases within their circuit,
In general, they have their hands full during a term. They also, to varying degrees, have outside-the-court responsibilities as the foremost experts on law and the people with knowledge of who is who in the judiciary. Often a president or one or more senators will seek out the opinion of the Chief Justice or an associate whose legal philosophy is amenable to their own, relative to new appointments being made and confirmed for district and circuit courts.