Proposed Rule Change to FantasySCOTUS, Seeking Comments: Lock Down Oral Arguments For the Rest of the Term?

April 29th, 2010

In accordance with the FPA (FantasySCOTUS Procedures Act), I am posting a proposed rule change, and am seeking comments.

Oral arguments are over for the term. There should be no reason why people change their predictions for cases to be argued this term.

However, people can change their predictions based on remaining assignments. For example, if someone can predict that Justice Thomas is due an assignment on a certain opinion, they can guess it will be a Conservative majority. Or if Justice Breyer is due an assignment, they can guess it will be a Liberal Majority. This gaming of the system is smart, but really defeats the purpose of the league, which is to predict cases based on arguments and briefs. Also, it punishes people who make their predictions and don’t think about them afterwards.

So I propose shutting down all predictions, in say 2 weeks or so.

Comments? Thoughts?