A break with custom on opinion release
on Apr 15, 2016 at 1:00 pm
The Supreme Court, altering its usual agenda, will issue one or more opinions in argued cases on Monday of next week, as well as on the more normal days of Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the Court’s telephonic “hotline” announcing its schedule. Ordinarily, when the Court is hearing argument on Mondays, it releases only orders in new cases, and withholds opinions until later in those weeks.
The new plan immediately stirred speculation that the Court has found some specific urgency in a pending case that requires immediate action. Monday will see a large crowd in the courtroom because the case up for argument that day is the major challenge to President Obama’s 2014 revision of immigration policy, in the case of United States v. Texas.
Here is what is now scheduled for Monday: new orders will be released at 9:30 a.m., one or more opinions in argued cases will be released at 10 a.m., the Court for this day will not conduct any admissions to its bar after the release of the opinions, but instead will go directly into the ninety-minute argument on the immigration controversy. It will release the written transcript of that argument within an hour or so after the hearing has ended.
