The Supreme Court heard oral argument in 61 cases this Term. It has issued rulings in 32 cases. So 29 cases remain. (I’m relying throughout this post on SCOTUSblog statistics, and I also borrow from its case descriptions and commentary.) SCOTUSblog classifies 10 of the remaining cases as “major” cases.
The Court will aim to issue all of its remaining rulings by Friday, June 28. It will issue rulings tomorrow and Friday. Look for a total of six to ten rulings to be issued on those two days. The Court will probably have four to six announcement sessions in the following two weeks. (Its calendar shows possible announcement days on June 17, 20, and 24, but the Court routinely adds new announcement days at the end of the term.)
The Court has rendered opinions in all of its cases from its October calendar and in all but two from its November calendar. The two remaining cases from November are (1) United States v. Rahimi—whether a federal statute that prohibits the possession of firearms by persons subject to domestic-violence restraining orders violates the Second Amendment on its face; and (2) Vidal v. Elster—whether the refusal to register a trademark violates the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment when the mark contains criticism of a government official or public figure.
The Chief did not write any of the October opinions and has not written yet in November, so it’s a safe bet that he has one of the two remaining November cases. I’ll guess that he writes in Rahimi to reject the Second Amendment challenge. That would leave Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, and Justice Kagan as the likely candidates for the majority opinion in Vidal. (Justice Sotomayor also hasn’t written for the November calendar, but she has already issued seven majority opinions, so she’s probably done for the term.) I’ll guess that Kagan has the assignment and will reject the First Amendment claim.
There are three cases remaining from the December calendar: (1) Harrington v. Purdue Pharma—whether the Bankruptcy Code authorizes a court to approve a release that extinguishes claims held by nondebtors against nondebtor third parties, without the claimants’ consent; (2) SEC v. Jarkesy—concerning the SEC’s ability to impose fines in administrative proceedings; and (3) Moore v. United States—a Sixteenth Amendment challenge to a law that taxes the undistributed profits from U.S. shares of foreign corporations that are majority American-owned.
Justice Gorsuch and Justice Barrett are each likely to have one of the cases, and, if Justice Thomas didn’t write for November, he probably has the third. I’ll guess that Justice Thomas rules against the court’s release in Purdue Pharma, Justice Gorsuch rules against the SEC in Jarkesy, and that Justice Barrett rejects the Sixteenth Amendment challenge in Moore.
I’ll hold off for now on predictions for the remaining months of oral argument.
By the way, I don’t claim to have had exceptional success on my predictions in the past.