U.S. Supreme Court
‘Hold Five’ Is Supreme Court Mantra
Surfers long to “hang five” and justices seek to “hold five.”
The latter term refers to the need to keep five justices in a majority, Joan Biskupic writes in USA Today.
Justices vote on a case within days of oral arguments. But they sometimes waiver after majority and minority opinions are assigned by senior justices in each group.
In the Supreme Court’s final “crunch month,” the pressure is especially intense, Biskupic writes.
“These are the last, hardest, cases,” Washington, D.C., lawyer David Ogden, a former Supreme Court clerk, told the newspaper. “The drama is not just in what the opinions are going to say; it’s in whether the votes from the conference are going to stand.”
