Advisory Opinions Who’s the Loneliest Supreme Court Justice?
11 snips
Oct 22, 2026 The Supreme Court’s emergency docket, transgender inmate care, and a copyright case emptied by recusals take center stage. Two dueling Third Circuit rulings tackle gun rights for nonviolent felons, while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s independent path sparks debate. The discussion also explores prosecuting Trump administration officials, political retaliation, and whether Texas really has any natural lakes.
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The Emergency Docket Keeps Creating More Emergencies
- The Supreme Court’s expanding emergency-docket role creates more requests and increasingly ad hoc decision-making.
- Sarah Isgur and David French suggest the Court may eventually need a “hard reboot” with clearer emergency-docket rules.
The Supreme Court’s Trump Advantage Has A Denominator Problem
- Trump’s apparent emergency-docket advantage shrinks when analysts include cases where the administration merely responded rather than sought relief.
- Across all applications, Trump’s first term, Biden, and Trump’s second term produced remarkably similar success rates of roughly 74–77%.
Four Justices Recused Over Their Books
- Four justices recused themselves from a copyright dispute because Penguin Random House published their books.
- The remaining Court lacked a quorum, leaving the lower-court ruling in place and exposing the absence of a recusal replacement process.
