Supreme Court Unanimous in 10 Out of 15 Signed Opinions this Term
Five opinions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday were unanimous and short.
The unanimity may signal that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is making progress toward his goal of seeking more consensus on the court, Legal Times reports. So far this term 10 out of 15 signed opinions have been unanimous, according to the story.
SCOTUSblog highlights another striking fact about yesterday’s opinions—their brevity. It describes the opinions as “so spare that the Supreme Court did not labor long to produce them.” Three of them were written by Justice David H. Souter, Legal Times points out, who has a reputation, “deservedly or not,” as a slow writer.
The Legal Times story quotes court watcher David Garrow, who notes that unanimous rulings often come early in the term. Still, he told the publication, “Monday’s set of rulings send a striking message of judicial consensus while belying any presumption of ideological division or conflict.”
Yesterday’s decisions:
• Held Title VII protects a worker from retaliation for cooperating in an internal probe of sexual harassment.
• Permitted police to conduct a pat-down of a car passenger based on a reasonable belief the person was armed and dangerous.
• Held prosecutors have immunity for mistakes in cases they supervise.
• Upheld a tariff on enriched uranium in the Supreme Court’s first ruling on an anti-dumping law passed in 1921.
• Upheld payment of a pension to an ex-wife named as the beneficiary, even though she renounced her rights to the money in divorce proceedings, according to SCOTUSblog.
