Now-Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was sworn-in on Saturday. The first Supreme Court swearing-in ceremony to be broadcast live on this new invention they call "television." What will they think up next? Broadcasting Supreme Court arguments live over this new technology? Gee-Whiz, wouldn't that be neat-o.
I have noticed something funny over the past two days. The Second Circuit has issued six, count 'em six, opinions in which Sotomayor was on the panel. The six are available here, here, here, here, here, and here. The opinions do not list Sotomayor on the panel. Instead, she is replaced with an asterisk, like this:
"SACK and KATZMANN, Circuit Judges.*"
That's from the first link up there to a case called Green Island Power Authority. There is a corresponding footnote attached to that asterisk, which states:
"The Honorable Sonia Sotomayor, originally a member of the panel, was elevated to the
2 Supreme Court on August 8, 2009. The two remaining members of the panel, who are in
3 agreement, have determined the matter. See 28 U.S.C. ยง 46(d); Local Rule 0.14(2); United States v. Desimone, 140 F.3d 457 (2d Cir. 1998)."
Considering that the average number of opinions each day is around 2 or 3, and there are 12 (or was 12) active circuit judges, plus a bunch of senior judges, plus many judges sitting by designation, that is an awful lot of opinions in cases for which she was on the panel.
Obviously, that is not a coincidence. One gets the sense that her colleagues were delaying the issuance of these opinions until she was officially confirmed. There are several possible reasons I can think of for this.
One, political -- they were holding back decisions so that they couldn't be used as potential ammunition during the confirmation battle. I haven't looked closely at these decisions to see whether they are controversial at all.
Two, administrative - it may just have been easier to wait. Sotomayor has been a little preoccupied with other matters, to say the least. It was probably difficult to get her final approval on these cases. Once she was no longer a member of the panel, it was okay to release them as the other two judges agreed.
Three, substantive - there is a chance that Sotomayor was considering dissenting in these cases and had been working on a dissent. I would guess that the dissent became moot once she was no longer a member of the panel.
Or maybe the Clerk's Office was just holding onto them as a group in case there was some other type of unforeseen issue as a result of the Supreme Court stuff.
Whatever the reason, I expect that there will be a few more * cases this week.
I have noticed something funny over the past two days. The Second Circuit has issued six, count 'em six, opinions in which Sotomayor was on the panel. The six are available here, here, here, here, here, and here. The opinions do not list Sotomayor on the panel. Instead, she is replaced with an asterisk, like this:
"SACK and KATZMANN, Circuit Judges.*"
That's from the first link up there to a case called Green Island Power Authority. There is a corresponding footnote attached to that asterisk, which states:
"The Honorable Sonia Sotomayor, originally a member of the panel, was elevated to the
2 Supreme Court on August 8, 2009. The two remaining members of the panel, who are in
3 agreement, have determined the matter. See 28 U.S.C. ยง 46(d); Local Rule 0.14(2); United States v. Desimone, 140 F.3d 457 (2d Cir. 1998)."
Considering that the average number of opinions each day is around 2 or 3, and there are 12 (or was 12) active circuit judges, plus a bunch of senior judges, plus many judges sitting by designation, that is an awful lot of opinions in cases for which she was on the panel.
Obviously, that is not a coincidence. One gets the sense that her colleagues were delaying the issuance of these opinions until she was officially confirmed. There are several possible reasons I can think of for this.
One, political -- they were holding back decisions so that they couldn't be used as potential ammunition during the confirmation battle. I haven't looked closely at these decisions to see whether they are controversial at all.
Two, administrative - it may just have been easier to wait. Sotomayor has been a little preoccupied with other matters, to say the least. It was probably difficult to get her final approval on these cases. Once she was no longer a member of the panel, it was okay to release them as the other two judges agreed.
Three, substantive - there is a chance that Sotomayor was considering dissenting in these cases and had been working on a dissent. I would guess that the dissent became moot once she was no longer a member of the panel.
Or maybe the Clerk's Office was just holding onto them as a group in case there was some other type of unforeseen issue as a result of the Supreme Court stuff.
Whatever the reason, I expect that there will be a few more * cases this week.
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