Authorship Predictions for the October Sitting

During the October sitting, nine cases were argued. With this lineup, it is likely that each Justice will have one opinion. Five of those cases have already been decided.

Justice Kavanaugh wrote Williams v. Reed. Justice Kagan wrote Royan Canin. Chief Justice Roberts wrote Lackey v. Stinnie. Justice Sotomayor wrote Glossip v. Oklahoma. Justice Jackson wrote Bouarfa v. Mayorkas.

Four cases remain to be decided: VanDerStock, Medical Marijuana v. Horn, Bufkin v. McDonough, and San Francisco v. EPA.

Back in January, I offered this prediction:

Fourth, we can already start to make predictions about the assignment of cases. There were nine cases argued during the October sitting. Presumably, each Justice will have one case from that sitting. Two cases have been decided so far from that sitting. Justice Kagan wrote Royal Canin, and Justice Jackson wrote Bouarfa, an immigration case. If I had to guess, the top two candidates to write Royal Canin would be the two procedure professors: Kagan or Barrett. Kagan got Royal Canin, which was argued on October 7. VanDerStock was argued on October 8. The only liberal left to write is Justice Sotomayor. And I do not think the Chief would give her that case.  I have a sinking feeling Barrett has VanDerStock, which is at bottom a statutory interpretation case. (I say sinking because I was counsel on that case, and attended oral argument.) Then again, we may never know how that case turns out, if the Trump ATF and DOJ take a new position. If that happens, we can check at the end of the term if Barrett doesn’t write an opinion for October.

I think it is even more likely that Justice Barrett has VanDerStock.

That leaves Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch for the remaining three cases. My uninformed speculation: Gorsuch has Medical Marijuana (he is from the Mile “High” City and he has written opinions about truckers before), Thomas has Bufkin, the Veterans Claim case, and Alito has San Francisco.

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