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Bold Justice: April 30, 2018

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Bold Justice: On to opinions

It was a big week for the courts: The White House added new nominees and the Supreme Court finished its argument schedule for the term. And although arguments are over, the majority of the court’s opinions are still to come. Strap in!

We #SCOTUS, so you don’t have to

Arguments for the October 2017 term have concluded, and we all have a chance to catch our collective court-watcher breath for a moment. In total, the Supreme Court heard argument in 69 cases this term, all of which you can track on our term overview page. Of those 69, the court has issued opinions in 24. The court usually issues the remainder of its opinions by the end of June.

We are still waiting on opinions in a number of the court’s most high-profile cases of the term, including Trump v. Hawaii, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Husted v. Randolph Institute, and the redistricting cases Abbott v. Perez and Benisek v. Lamone. Stay tuned!

Wondering where the cases came from this term? Check out this chart showing the number of appeals from each lower court:

SCOTUS cases 4.16.18.png

SCOTUS trivia

This week’s question is about Supreme Court history. We previously asked you where the Supreme Court first met. Your question: When was the last time the Supreme Court’s term took place in a city other than Washington, D.C.?

Choose an answer to find out!

Federal court action

Confirmations

The Senate did not confirm any additional nominees this week.

Nominations

President Trump announced nine new nominations this week:

  • A. Marvin Quattlebaum, Jr., nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
  • Julius Richardson, nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
  • Richard J. Sullivan, nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
  • Roy K. Altman, nominated to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
  • Thomas P. Barber, nominated to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
  • Rodolfo “Rudy” Ruiz II, nominated to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
  • Rodney Smith, nominated to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
  • T. Kent Wetherell, II, nominated to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
  • Richard A. Hertling, nominated to the United States Court of Federal Claims.

Vacancies

There are currently 148 vacancies in the federal judiciary. Of those 148 vacancies, 80 have no nominee as of yet during President Trump’s administration. According to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts and other outlets, an additional 32 judges have announced their intention to leave active judicial status during Trump’s first term. There are 72 pending nominations to seats tracked by Ballotpedia’s Federal Vacancy Count. Check out the chart below to see vacancies of four years or more:

Judicial vacancy 4.30.18.png

Committee action

The Senate Judiciary Committee met on April 25 and 27 to consider additional nominees. The Committee did not vote to report any additional nominees for confirmation vote in the Senate.

The Committee is not yet scheduled to meet this week.

Love judicial nomination, confirmation, and vacancies information? We figured. Our monthly Federal Vacancy Count, which is published on the last Wednesday of every month, monitors all of the faces, places, and spaces moving in, moving out, and moving on in the federal judiciary.

Need a daily fix? Our Federal Vacancy Warning System’s got you covered with continuing updates on the status of all federal judicial nominees.

Or, if you prefer, we maintain a list of individuals nominated by President Trump.

A judge you oughta know

Every week, we at Ballotpedia want to highlight a federal judge or judicial nominee. We’re in our review of President Donald Trump’s list of 25 individuals from which he indicated he would choose nominees to fill Supreme Court vacancies. This week, let’s get to know Robert Young, a former justice on the Michigan Supreme Court and a judge you oughta know. He was appointed to the court by Republican Governor John Engler in 1999 and was elected in 2002. He retired from the court on April 17, 2017. Young graduated in 1974 from Harvard College with honors and from Harvard Law School in 1977.

Looking ahead

Here’s what we’re looking ahead to this week:

  • We expect the U.S. Supreme Court to release orders and possibly new opinions.
  • We expect the Senate Judiciary Committee to meet to consider additional nominees.

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Why Bold Justice?

Well, there’s a story behind it, and we’re happy to credit Justice Samuel Alito for the inspiration. Back in October of 2014, Justice Alito joined his fellow Supreme Court Yale Law alumni, Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, for a panel as part of the law school’s alumni weekend (video below). During the discussion, the moderator asked the audience if they could guess which of the three justices on the panel served as the inspiration for a coffee house to name one of their blends of coffee, Bold Justice. Justice Alito responded, “Obviously, it’s me.”

He went on to tell the story of how, during his days as a Third Circuit judge, his law clerks participated in a Newark, New Jersey, coffee shop’s year-long promotion wherein if customers sampled every blend for one year, the customers could then create and name a blend of coffee. Justice Alito described Bold Justice as a blend that was “designed for about three o’clock in the afternoon if you’re working and you’re starting to fall asleep, if you have this, it will jolt you awake.” A blend of courts and coffee: sounds perfect to us!

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