Supreme Court has added a session for Tuesday (and a last session Wednesday)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

For those watching the end of term cases, I want to point out that the calendar on the Supreme Court website is now showing they'll be holding a session tomorrow.  Possibly it'll just be Voting Rights Act case, but they may also do the marriage cases tomorrow as well so they can start their vacation.

[Antonio the Sixth]

How should we interpret this?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

That they want to go on their vacation ASAP.  They released six decisions today including the affirmative action punt and a per curiam decision in a death penalty case they didn't hold hearings on, so I think just the three big cases VRA, Prop 8, and DOMA remain.  The only real question is do they di them all at once or give them separate dates.  I think a lot depends on how much the various justices want to talk when they release their opinions as to whether this takes one day or two.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Three cases left for Wednesday. Besides the Prop 8 and DOMA cases, there's also Sekhar v. US.

If the judges who are expected to write the opinions do write them, and they follow the traditional order of having the opinion from the least senior justice first, they'll be announced in the order:

DOMA (Kennedy)
Sekhar v. US (Scalia)
Prop 8 (Roberts)

[riceowl]

Wouldn't Kennedy go before Scalia?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Wouldn't Kennedy go before Scalia?

You're right.  Brain freeze on my part.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Are they going to decide all three on the same day? Isn't there a session Thursday?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Are they going to decide all three on the same day? Isn't there a session Thursday?

No.  The last regularly scheduled session was Monday, and based on what happened last year with the Obamacare decision we speculated that there would be a extra session scheduled for Thursday, but the court indicated at the end of today's special session that tomorrow would be the last session.  Besides, Sekhar doesn't need a day of its own.

The probable order of the three cases does suggest that the decision in DOMA will not be of the sort that affects all 50 states, thereby rendering the Prop 8 decision roughly academic, and the court may well have chosen to include Scalia's case in the mix to give reporters a chance to finish their initial report on the DOMA case before they get to the Prop 8 case.

[Mr. Morden]

If the judges who are expected to write the opinions do write them, and they follow the traditional order of having the opinion from the least senior justice first, they'll be announced in the order:

DOMA (Kennedy)
Sekhar v. US (Scalia)
Prop 8 (Roberts)

This is just speculation though, right?  If we knew who was writing each decision, then we'd know that at least that author was in the majority on the case in question, but we don't know for sure what the voting breakdown on any of these is yet, right?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

We know from how the Court likes to divide up the writing of opinions that Scalia almost certainly has Sekhar which was argued in April and that Kennedy and Roberts almost certainly have the marriage cases which were argued in March.  Conceivably, Roberts could have the DOMA case, but that almost certainly means he'll be writing a 6-3 narrowly defined moderate hero decision.  I can't see Kennedy supporting upholding DOMA in full.

[politicallefty]

If the Court was going to issue a 50-state ruling in support of gay marriage on equal protection grounds, couldn't it be possible that both Windsor and Hollingsworth are folded into a single larger decision? (I'm not at all suggesting that that scenario is likely.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Both cases deal not just with the issue of same-sex marriage but also with the issue of who may defend a law when the executive declines to do so.  Indeed, that's one way the court could decide to punt the issue, by ruling on the procedural aspects.  However in the case of Prop 8, the court could defer to the California Supreme Court on the issue of who has standing to defend a California law, even if in the DOMA case, it denies the ability of the House to defend a US law the President declines to defend.

[Mr. Morden]

Wow, I was so caught up in the turmoil of the Australian PM being ousted that I almost forgot this gay marriage decision was about to be announced.  Exciting day in politics.