How Have Our “Petitions to Watch” Fared?
on Nov 20, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Before each conference, we’ve posted a list of “Petitions to Watch,” which includes the paid cases that we think will be taken most seriously.
This Term (which includes cases considered during the Long Conference of September 25):
The Court has granted 18 cases (3 of these are sets of two consolidated petitions). Of these:
-4 have been pauper cases, which we do not evaluate for our “Petitions to Watch†feature (note that so far 22.2% of grants have been from pauper cases).
-Of the 14 paid grants, 10 have been on our list (71%).
-If we do not include the Long Conference, which is quite difficult to predict given the number of cases the Court considers, 4 of the 5 paid cases that have been granted were on our list.
6 requests have been made for the views of the Solicitor General (including one set of 2 consolidated cases). 5 of these cases have been on our lists.
Looking at it from the other direction, we have picked out 58 cases to feature thus far.
-Of these, 11 (20%) have been granted and placed on the docket (2 were consolidated for argument).
-1 was granted and summarily vacated.
-6 have been sent to the Solicitor General (2 were consolidated before the invitation to the SG).
-3 are likely being held pending the outcome of other granted cases. These are 05-1439 pending Travelers v. PG&E (05-1429), 06-82 pending the Safeco and Geico insurance cases (06-84 and 06-100), and 05-1527, which is potentially awaiting the outcome in Carey v. Musladin.
-2 have not been acted upon and likely will be relisted (Morse v. Frederick, 06-278, and Met-Life v. Hawkins-Dean, 05-1424).
Thus, not counting the 2 cases currently awaiting action, 21 of the 56 cases we selected (37.5%) have either been granted and docketed, granted and vacated, sent to the SG, or held pending the outcome of other cases. 35 have been denied (62.5%).
Our “Petitions to Watch†pages have all been updated to reflect the status of each case listed. The page for the Conference of 9/25 is here, the combined page for 10/6 and 10/13 is here, 10/27 is here, 11/3 is here, and 11/9 is here.
The next Supreme Court Conference is tomorrow, 11/21, and our list of “Petitions to Watch” for that Conference is here.
