Time for the June 2009 update on statistics and observations from opinions and happenings at the United States Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the Louisiana Supreme Court. Normally, I follow the stats and observations with news from the Bartlett Blawg and The Bartlett Law Firm, but I’m going to reverse order this month, as there is a major development on that front.
The Bartlett Blawg and (no more) Bartlett Law Firm
As I reported in a post last week, I have an accepted an opportunity to move my appellate practice to the law firm of one of my best clients over the past fifteen months, Jones, Swanson, Huddell & Garrison. The appellate-focused practice that I have developed over this time at The Bartlett Law Firm will continue to grow, but from this new platform within an already-premier litigation practice. I look forward to this evolution in my own practice, and also look forward to continuing my relationship with many of you (as colleagues and as clients).
The Bartlett Blawg, however, will continue reporting on the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Louisiana Supreme Court, from this same URL. In fact, this change has resulted in a more streamlined Bartlett Blawg, as this is now a stand-alone site for the blog. Keep returning here for your daily updates and opinions summaries. I know many of you do, as June 2009 far surpassed the previous record for hits on this site, and July already shows no signs of slowing down.
On with the statistics and observations …
U.S. Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court has completed the October 2008 Term with the release of 22 opinions in the month of June. Justice Kennedy authored the most opinions for the Court in June, with four; followed by Justices Scalia and Thomas, with two each; Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Stevens, Souter, Breyer, and Alito, with two each; and Justice Ginsburg with one. One decision was designated per curiam, though it did carry two dissenting justices. The main dissent author in June was Justice Stevens, with six full dissents and one partial dissent; followed by Justice Ginsburg, with three full dissents and one partial dissent; Justices Scalia and and Alito, each with two full dissents and a partial dissent; Chief Justice Roberts, with one full dissent and two partial dissents; Justice Thomas, with three partial dissents; Justices Souter and Breyer, each with two full dissents; and Justice Kennedy, with one full dissent and one partial dissent.
In the 22 June opinions, Justice Kennedy was most often in the majority, authoring or joining the opinion of the Court 17 times. On the other extreme, Justice Stevens authored or joined a dissent or partial dissent in 11 of the 22 opinions. In his last month as a Justice on the Court, Justice Souter authored two opinions of the Court and two dissents; joined or authored the majority opinion in 14 of 22 cases; and authored or joined in a dissent in seven of 22 cases.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
In June 2009, the U.S. Fifth Circuit released 365 opinions, 42 opinions designated for publication and 323 unpublished opinions; the 2009-year-to-date totals are 1,626 opinions, 214 designated for publication and 1,412 unpublished. One of the decisions released in June was from the May 2009 en banc sitting, with the Court coming to e, resulting in the panel decision being vacated and the district court judgmea non-decision “tie” in U.S. v. Sealnt being allowed to stand.
In addition to the non-decision opinion in U.S. v. Seale, six other opinions designated for publication were released as per curiam opinions. (Notably, though a per curiam, Seale did carry a dissent from Judge DeMoss). The busiest opinion author on published June opinions was Jude Wiener, with 5 opinions for the Court; followed by Judge Stewart (4), Chief Judge Jones (3), and Judges Clement (3), Davis (2), Smith (2), Benavides (2), Dennis (2), Haynes (2), Higginbotham (2), Jolly (1), Prado (1), Southwick (1), Reavley (1), and DeMoss (1) (two other published opinions for the Court were authored by judges sitting by designation). In addition amond opinions designated for publication, Judge Owen authored one concurring opinion, Judges Stewart, Higginbotham, and DeMoss authored one dissent each, and retired Justice O’Connor also authored one dissent.
More published opinions came out of appeals from the Southern District of Texas in June 2009, with 11, followed by W.D. La. (6), W.D. Tex. (5), N.D. Tex. (4), E.D. La. (4), E.D. Tex. (3), agency decision appeals (3), N.D. Miss. (2), S.D. Miss. (2), and on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court (1).
In news from the Fifth Circuit, as reported on this Blawg the Court has issued proposed rule changes in June, primarily focused on ramping up for e-filing with the Court. The Fifth Circuit also, in June, began to tee up its next round of en banc cases, granting en banc rehearing in Grand Isle Shipyard, Inc. v. Seacor Marine.
In one final bit of Fifth Circuit news, I noted that, a few months back, the Fifth Circuit website no longer carried biographies of the judges sitting on the Court. At the beginning of June, I emailed Fifth Circuit Clerk Charles Fulbruge, noting the deletion of the information. I explained in my email that (1) while not the be-all, end-all of oral argument preparation, the judge bios provided through the Court’s website were always a good starting point for such preparation, especially when the Court’s judges often bemoan the lack of adequate preparation by counsel appearing before them; (2) the judge bios provided a needed measure of humanization of the Court to the public; and (3) the move away from electronic accessibility seemed odd in light of the new proposed rules designed to enable electronic accessibility of the Court. Clerk Fulbruge emailed in response that the order had come from Washington for the Courts of Appeals to police their websites for information that might endanger judges by revealing information about where their homes are located or other compromising identifying information; so the Fifth Circuit determiend to remove its links to the biographies hosted on the government website of the Federal Judicial Center. The reason for caution on judicial biographies is understandable, but the solution to remove the FJC-hosted biographies is not. The FJC biographies provide no information that might compromise a judge’s personal identifying or location information: They contain the year and city of birth; positions, dates, and nominating President for federal judicial service; schools attended and years of graduation; a brief list of non-federal-judiciary professional positions; race/ethnicity; and gender. Not only is the information bare-boned, but it is also still available at the FJC website. In separate posts on this Blawg over the next couple weeks, I will post the FJC biography information, and invite in the comments to each Judge’s biography the contribution of further information that may be helpful for oral argument preparation. Consider this your new judicial biography resource for the U.S. Fifth Circuit.
Louisiana Supreme Court
In June 2009, the Louisiana Supreme Court concluded its current term, releasing 13 opinions (all on June 26). Five of the opinions for the Court were designated per curiam (though one of these carried three concurrences “in result”). Chief Justice Kimball authored one opinion for the Court; Justice Victory, three; Justice Knoll, two; Justice Weimer, one; and Justice Guidry, one. Chief Justice Kimball also dissented in one case; Justice Johnson dissented in three; and Justice Weimer in one. An interesting phenomenon in June’s decisions were a number of concurrences-in-result, in at least one case stripping the nominal opinion of the Court of any precedential value (Warren v. Louisiana Medical Mutual Insurance Co., at first blush a 5-2 decision, but two of the justices in the majority specifically concurred “in result,” apparently not joining in the reasoning of Justice Victory’s designated opinion for the Court).
In Louisiana Supreme Court news for June, the Court instituted a Pro Se Litigant Task Force, and issued revisions to the proposed new lawyer advertising rules set to go into effect in October.