End of Term

The Supreme Court is now on summer break till October. There are a bunch of good articles about the end of the Term, but the place to go is SCOTUSBlog, which has pages and pages of stats-- really anything you could ask about the Term is broken down statistically. Here are some of the take-away stats highlighted by the blog:

The Sixth Circuit continued its abysmal streak in the Supreme Court. Between OT08 and OT10, cases originating in the Sixth Circuit were affirmed only once in 18 attempts. All 5 cases from the Sixth Circuit were reversed during OT11. [Page 3].

The Court released a rare 5-4 summary reversal this Term in American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock — a rarity because four Justices can usually grant certiorari in a case and force oral arguments, thereby eliminating the need for a dissenting opinion. [Page 5].

The Court has decided fewer merits cases after oral argument, 65, than it has during any time in the last twenty years. The Court was already cruising to a relatively low number of merits cases when it finished granting cases for oral argument during OT11 in January, but the dismissals of Vasquez v. United States and First American Financial v. Edwards, the rebriefing of Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, and the eventual consolidation of Jackson v. Hobbs with Miller v. Alabama for purposes of the opinion have resulted in the Court issuing a record low number of opinions in fully briefed merits cases. [Page 9].

Although it issued a low number of signed merits cases, the Court did released a high number of summary reversals, 10. From OT00-OT10, the Court averaged 6 summary reversals per Term. [Page 10].

Justices Scalia and Thomas have finished the Term with the highest rate of agreement on the judgment across all cases. They agreed 93.3% of the time. Justices Scalia and Ginsburg finished with the lowest rate, agreeing 56.0% of the time. [Page 23].

The two fastest signed majority opinions of OT11 were authored by Justice Scalia. He produced Greene v. Fisher in 28 days and RadLax v. Amalgamated Bank in 36 days. Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan each authored 2 of the top 10 fastest opinions. [Page 27].

Fascinating stuff. I thought this stat was particularly interesting:

Justice Kennedy is, for the fourth consecutive Term, the Justice most likely to appear in the majority. This Term he voted with the majority in 69 out of the 74 cases he voted in, marking the second-highest percentage of the past five Terms (93.2%) and falling only to his frequency in the majority from last Term (93.8%). Chief Justice Roberts, who himself has become a mainstay of recent majority opinions, had the second-highest frequency in the majority (91.9%). In 3 of the last 4 Terms, the Chief Justice has been either the most likely or second-most likely Justice to appear in the majority of a decision. Just as she was last Term, Justice Ginsburg is the Justice least likely to vote with the majority; she votes with the majority in 69.3% of all cases.

69 out of 74 for Kennedy is amazing. It really is his Court. One big asterisk though in that he lost the biggest case of the Term. It must kill Kennedy that he had to dissent in the Health Care cases and that he couldn't convince Roberts to come back to the conservative Justices.

Enjoy the summer SCOTUS.

The Health Care Ruling is a Big win for....

...the Supreme Court. 

The Chief Justice, by joining the left and upholding the law, saved the Supreme Court from being looked at as only a political body.  If it would have struck down the ACA on political 5-4 voting lines, it would have been Bush v. Gore all over again (which was the Rehnquist Court, not the Roberts Court), and the Court would have been delegitimized.  But now, even though Republicans and Democrats will fight over this in the upcoming elections, the Court will be seen as more neutral than in the past.

"It's our Super Bowl."

That's how Tom Goldstein describes today on the live blog over at SCOTUSBlog, which is worth headed to right now. 

I'm actually very excited to see what the Court does on the lying about a military honor case...

I'll hopefully post something this afternoon with some discussion about the cases today.

UPDATE -- the reason you should have been at SCOTUSBlog instead of CNN is that CNN reported "Individual Mandate Struck Down" for about 6 minutes before realizing its mistake.  So bad.  Goldstein, Howe & Company got it right from the get go.  Bloggers are better than MSM....

UPDATE 2 -- Here's the lengthy healthcare opinion.

P.S. Valor Act struck down...

Judge Robin Rosenbaum confirmed!

92-3 by the Senate. Well done and congratulations!

Update-- to answer the questions in the comments, per Glenn Sugameli, the only No votes (GOP Sens. Lee [UT], DeMint [SC] and Paul [KY]) were from those who have been continuing to vote NO on all judicial nominees in protest of three President Obama Executive branch nominees

11th Circuit decides whether the "act of masturbating while sitting beside another person ... satisf[ies] the 'with another person' requirement of the statute."

It does not.  The Federal Public Defender's office deserves a hand for this win.

The facts of USA v. Randolph Scott:

In a one-count information, the government charged Scott with “knowingly
attempt[ing] to commit an unnatural and lascivious act with another person, that is,
masturbating while attempting to touch another person . . . .” Scott pleaded not
guilty and the parties consented to a bench trial before a magistrate judge. At trial,
the government called Lauren Wyscaver as its only witness. She testified that she
was sitting in a chair in the waiting room of Miami Veterans Affairs Hospital
when Scott approached her and asked if he could sit in the chair next to her. She
agreed, and the two began talking about their respective military service, why they
were at the hospital, and the weather. There were four or five other people in the
waiting room, which had approximately 20 chairs.
According to Wyscaver, within the first few minutes of their conversation,
Scott “tried to touch [her] ankle, but [she] pulled away.” Wyscaver became
uncomfortable and started to ignore Scott, but he continued talking to her. Scott
told Wyscaver that he thought she was pretty and offered to pay her to give him
her phone number. Wyscaver testified that Scott then, as “nonchalantly as you can
do it,” reached down into his pants and started masturbating. “Once he did that,”
she said, “I sat up and I walked into the nurse’s triage room because I was
frightened.” Wyscaver eventually reported Scott’s conduct to a security guard.
Based on that evidence, the magistrate judge concluded that Scott had
attempted to “masturbat[e] or fondl[e] himself with another person who is”
Wyscaver. For that reason, the magistrate judge ruled that Scott had violated the
Assimilative Crimes Act by attempting to commit an “unnatural and lascivious act
with another person” in violation of Fla. Stat. Ann. § 800.02. The magistrate
judge sentenced Scott to 68 days in prison, followed by one year of probation.
The district court affirmed his conviction and sentence, and Scott now appeals
only his conviction.

So what did the court decide:

The government argues that Scott was masturbating “with” Wyscaver
because “he was sexually attracted to her” and because he stared at her while
masturbating. But the “with another person” element of section 800.02 is not
satisfied simply because a defendant is sexually aroused or erotically inspired by
another person. If mere arousal or inspiration were enough, Conforti would have
come out the other way. Nor does the fact that a defendant stares at another
person while committing an act mean that the defendant committed that act with
another person.
Even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, there is
insufficient evidence to support the conclusion that Scott “knowingly attempt[ed]
to commit an unnatural and lascivious act with another person, that is,
masturbating while attempting to touch another person,” which is what the
information alleged. A reasonable factfinder could not have found that Scott was
masturbating “with another person” within the meaning of section 800.02.

Well, there you go -- staring at another person doesn't mean you committed an act with that person.

Putting aside all of the funny one-liners, can someone please explain to me why the feds brought this case in the first place, which is unlike the ICE chief, Anthony V. Mangione who is apparently set to plead guilty.

On a separate note -- GOOD LUCK TO ROBIN ROSENBAUM TODAY.