Federal Judiciary

Changes in October arguments

By Akin Gump Supreme Court Practice Group

The Supreme Court on Monday released a revised calendar of oral arguments for the first session of the new Term, beginning Monday, Oct. 4.  No cases from the previous version have been dropped, and no new cases have been added.  The only changes were to rearrange the order of the cases, to different time slots on the same day, or to different days.  The changes appear to be related to the arrival on the Court of Justice Elena Kagan (sw0rn  in last Saturday). Because she will be recused from several cases in the October sitting, due to her prior service as Solicitor General and thus the lead counsel on government cases, Kagan now will be on the bench for early cases in which she is participating, and then leave the bench when a later case in which she is recused is set to begin.  Arguments sometimes run longer than the allotted hour, so if she were recused from an early case but sitting in a later one, it would be difficult to gauge exactly when to go on the bench.

The prior version, with brief summaries of the issues involved in each case, can be found here.

Full post as published by SCOTUSBLOG on August 09, 2010 (boomark / email).