United States Supreme Court Watch

FAQs and how to 'watch' SCOTUS on opinion day
  • Figured I'd add this as well, but a quick guide to release days (the next one is tomorrow):

    The Supreme Court does not release all their opinions at once. Instead, beginning at 10AM EST on an opinion day, the most junior member with a controlling opinion (usually a majority, sometimes the plurality, rarely something else) to release that day reads out their opinion. As they begin to read it, it's posted simultaneously to the Scotus's website, here abouts. This continues from most junior to most senior (with the Chief Justice always going last regardless of seniority).

    So how many opinions will be announced? No one outside the court knows until it happens, but we have a few clues. 2 key things are the number of boxes, which is how many boxes were needed to transport the printed off opinions. Note that it's not a perfect indicator, as a long opinion might take almost all of a box, or a short one hardly any. Second is what's called an R-Number. Basically each opinion has a number. Sometimes that number ends with an R. If it does, that's the last opinion to be released that day.

    How do you know how many boxes are there, and how to get a link to the opinion and know which side won? SCOTUSblog.com has main page live updates on every opinion day, with commenters noting the number of boxes ahead of time, and keeping people updated re: what opinion just got decided, a link to the opinion, and what was decided.

    More FAQ stuff here:
     
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