Does SCOTUS have a plan to avoid 4-4 rulings?
The U.S. Supreme Court granted no new cert petitions Monday, which according to Bloomberg News could be a way to deal with what could be a long vacancy following the February death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Bloomberg News notes that if a U.S. Supreme Court opinion has a 4-4 vote, the lower court’s ruling is upheld.
“The process of numerous 4-4 ties or dismissals would be undesirable to the court,” Gregory Garre, who served as President George W. Bush’s solicitor general, told the news service. “My sense is that the court will want to roll up its sleeves and try to find ways to resolve the cases before it, even if ultimately they will be kicking some broader issues down the road.”
The court could also push deadlocked cases to be reargued in October, with the hope that a new justice could participate. However, with an intransigent block of Senate Republicans who have said that they will refuse to hold nomination hearings while Obama is in office, confirmation for a new justice could take more than one year.
Another solution might be publishing less broad rulings, which could get five votes.
“I suspect they will do what they can to minimize 4-4 affirmances and will likely avoid cases that they think would come out 4-4,” says John Elwood, an appellate lawyer, told Bloomberg. “But because they might have a new colleague next term, it may not affect their grant decisions that much. It will be interesting to see.”
