Updated: Authorship of Opinions

June 24th, 2013

I went 3/3 from last week’s predictions about authorship. Kennedy had Fisher, and Alito had Vance and Mutual (I didn’t predict UT SW). So what is left?

From the January sitting, only Koontz is outstanding. Because Kagan wrote Descamps from that sitting, Koontz likely belongs to Alito.

Because Scalia authored AmEx, there is only one outstanding opinion from February–Shelby County. And the Chief is the only Justice who hasn’t authored yet. So, it’s a good guess that the Chief has Shelby County.

From the March sitting, outstanding are Perry and Windsor. Roberts and Kennedy have not yet written for that term. In contrast to last time, I offer no prediction of who writes which. I go back and forth on this every day, so I’m staying on the sidelines.

From April, outstanding are Baby Girl and Sekhar Scalia and Kennedy haven’t written yet for that sitting. Ginsburg and Sotomayor wrote twice. I have no opinion who gets which opinion. Baby Girl seems too touchy-feely so I would usually give it to Kennedy, but he is quite busy, and Scalia doesn’t have many big opinions, so maybe Scalia gets it. Toss-up.