OT08 is O-V-E-R (UPDATED)
The October 2008 Supreme Court Term (OT08) has come to an end. After deciding 79 cases (up from 71 in OT07 and 72 in OT06), the Justices have hung up their robes for the summer and Justice Souter said goodbye to the Court forever.
By many measures, OT08 was more similar to OT06 (one of the most divisive terms in Supreme Court history) than to OT07. For example, in OT08, 29% of the cases were decided by a 5-4 majority as compared to 33% in OT06 and only 17% in OT07. And, the Court reversed or vacated the lower court in 76% of cases this term as compared to 73% in OT07 and only 66% in OT07.
One thing that hasn't changed is the influence of Justice Kennedy, who voted with the majority in 73 of the 79 cases this term. Twenty-three of this year's cases were 5-4 decisions and Justice Kennedy was in the majority in 18 of them. Sixteen of these 5-4 decisions were divided along the typical ideological lines, with Justices Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter, and Breyer making up the liberal voting bloc, Justices Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia making up the conservative voting bloc, and Justice Kennedy serving as the sole swing vote. Justice Kennedy sided with the conservative voting bloc in 11 of these cases and the liberal voting bloc in only 5.
Justice Kennedy's fairly consistent agreement with the conservatives on the Court is only one of the reasons why both the Washington Post and the New York Times featured articles yesterday about how the Supreme Court has shifted to the right this Term.
For the next few weeks, no doubt, reporters and analysts will try to answer lots of questions about this term--What was the most significant case? What was the biggest surprise? Which Justice wrote the most influential opinions? I recommend reading through Slate's "Supreme Court Breakfast Table" to get a thorough and thoughtful analysis of the term. It is a conversation between Walter Dellinger, (former Solicitor General) Dahlia Lithwick and Emily Bazelon (senior editors for Slate Magazine) and Linda Greenhouse (former New York Times reporter), that highlights the biggest cases of the term while taking a big picture look at the Court and OT08 as well.
Also, to learn more about the Supreme Court Term, join a confernece call on Tuesday, July 7th, at 1:30 p.m. Eastern, sponsored by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, American Jewish Committee , Anti-Defamation League, Hadassah and the National Council for Jewish Women. The call will feature Emily Bazelon (Senior Research Scholar in Law and Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School and Senior Editor at Slate magazine) and Erwin Chemerinsky (Founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law). To RSVP, click here (you must RSVP to get the call-in information).
Note: All statistics in this post come from the summary memo of the SCOTUSWiki's End of Term "Super Stat Pack," which has even more interesting and informative data. I highly recommend checking it out.