SCOTUS Watch: Orders List

I briefly referenced two orders by Roberts and Alito from last week in their role as circuit justices. A bit more on them.

One case involved a sports betting lawsuit:

The Florida pari-mutuel outlet had asked the United States Supreme Court on Oct. 6 to prevent the Seminole Tribe of Florida from resuming the taking of mobile and online sports bets through its Hard Rock BET app. West Flagler asked for the stay, it said in its filing, to prepare an official plea to the Supreme Court, called a writ of certiorari, to settle a matter that has dragged on since 2021.

On Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts granted the stay request temporarily. The US Court of Appeals, DC Circuit had ruled in June that the Seminoles were legally able to resume sports betting activity in Florida. The Department of the Interior, which regulates tribal gambling compacts and is the target of West Flagler’s litigation, has until Oct. 18 to respond. The Court will make a final ruling on the stay thereafter.

[Legal types might note that the Seminole Tribe was involved in a major Eleventh Amendment case back in the day and that too involved gambling.]

The other (via Chris Geidner) involved Missouri v. Biden, the social-media influence case. Alito, again, issued an administrative stay of the July 4 injunction in the case after the 5th Cir wrested control of the case back and expanded its injunction (nonetheless still narrowed from the original).

Or (that's from a tweet), as he said: "tl;dr: The Biden admin is not bound by the injunction currently." This matter was referenced here before. As Geidner, who does yeoman work keeping details straight in these sorts of cases, discusses, it is part of a rather convoluted series of events. 

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The normal practice is to drop cert grants on Friday before a Monday Order List (where pro forma stuff is handled).  Amy Howe discusses the cases here. The main one of interest allows Justice Jackson to take part in a major dispute. The grant was foreshadowed by the other case not being scheduled among the released December Calendar cases. So, things wrap up nicely.

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I grant (ha) that these sorts of insider baseball details interest me a lot more than the average person. But, there are a lot of little things of some importance (granted, "in a fashion" in various cases) going on at the Supreme Court. 

I continue to think there should be more clarity and assistance in understanding them. This would include Order List sections that are not merely screenshots of orders but with actual links to the docket page, so we can see what happened and read more on the case. 

Such things, including a frequently asked question (FAQ) page to clarify the basic parts of a typical Order List, would be quite helpful. Why not show the average reader (and many not-so-average) that even your run-of-the-mill order has some interesting little details.  

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The Monday Order List was a bit more thin than usual (less than three pages). The Crook v. Sheriff reference was a bit amusing. 

"Rule 39.8" is a reference to a frivolous petition. A few justices back in the day (Stevens included) opposed this policy when it was first applied around 1990. I wonder if Justice Jackson has any thoughts given her criminal defense background. As usual, even for this thin Order List, a FAQ as well as links to the actual cases cited would have been careful.

Chris Geidner referenced the recent execution where the Supreme Court lifted a lower court stay with three justices merely citing their dissent without comment. He argues it is an institutional failure not to explain. He noted in a comment the quite true fact that liberal justices stay quiet for various reasons. All things considered, I still oppose not explaining the reasons or disagreeing with the result, at least in this case. 

There is a wider belief by some that the votes in each and every case should be open. I doubt this is really necessary and it would probably lead to a policy of default votes. Will there be a rule that non-binding straw votes not be allowed or something? I don't really care if a justice or two silently dissented in not granting a case today. I do basically consider it, not a dissent unless it is actually public. "Technically" true or not.  

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Anyway, again, that's all she wrote for now. There is another execution scheduled later in the month. The next conference is on the 27th and then the month ends with two argument days. There are those pending stays from Robert and Alito. And, something else might come up.

The corrupt packed Supreme Court is never totally not working.