I have spent the last 2.5 days at Minnesota CLE's Criminal Law Institute, picking up a bevvy of CLE credits and seeing what's new in the criminal law area. From this morning's lecture on the U.S. Supreme Court, here are just a few interesting tidbits:
-- The high court decided 68 cases this term -- the lowest output since 1953;
-- Justice Anthony Kennedy was the swing vote in every one of the more than 20 opinions decided by a 5-4 margin;
-- some lawyers have, as a result, begun tailoring their Supreme Court arguments specifically to court Justice Kennedy;
-- the high court has shown a strong proclivity toward taking business cases (40 percent of the docket) and toward deciding in favor of the business in most of those cases; and
-- a woman who mailed poisoned home-baked cookies to all the justices in 2005 was sentenced to 15 years in prison last year.
The last point gave me some pause as I munched absent-mindedly on one of those free bagels they set out for you at CLE programs ...
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2 comments:
Well, it decided 68 cases after oral argument, but (counting the 4 cases it decided without oral argument) it actually decided a total of 72 cases. But that's still a recent low.
Thanks for the clarification on the nonoral cases (and, so that it's no reflection on the CLE, I will add that the same point was made there.)
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