Welcome to the fourth installment of Predictions of the 10th Justice, brought to you by FantasySCOTUS.net. The league has over 2,600 members, who have made predictions on all cases currently pending before the Supreme Court. Check out a recent CNN.com feature on FantasySCOTUS.net. Also note that our site was placed above stories about Justice Sotomayor and Chief Justice Rehnquist.
Tony Mauro at the Blog of Legal Times wrote an article about the Supreme Court’s delay in releasing an opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, commonly known as the Hillary Movie case. To help predict the case, Tony relied on several SCOTUS experts, and also asked our opinion. Interestingly, our data match the predictions of his SCOTUS experts.
Since our original predictions, our league has doubled in size and now has over 550 predictions for Citizens United. The Hillary Movie case is a showdown between free speech and campaign finance laws. In 2008, the D.C. Circuit ruled in favor of the FEC that Hillary: The Movie could not be shown on television right before the 2008 Democratic primaries under the McCain-Feingold Act.
Out of 556 predictions, 67% predicted that the Supreme Court will likely reverse the lower Court, while 33% predicted that the Supreme Court will affirm the lower court’s decisions.
The vast majority of members predict that the case will be a close 5-4 split. Two hundred and sixty-three members voted for a 5-4 reversal, while 121 members voted for a 5-4 affirmance. This prediction of the league mirrors the predictions of close Court watchers. Very few predict that the case will be unanimous in either direction.
But what about the Supreme Court’s long delay in issuing the opinion? Our predictions, after the jump.