Source: http://live.scotusblog.com/Event/Live_blog_of_orders_and_opinions__April_2_2018_2
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 00:11:18+00:00

Document:
This live blog features discussion of today's grant (Stokeling v. U.S.), summary reversal (Kisela v. Harris) and merits decision (Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro).
Good morning, everyone! Welcome to our live blog. I am down at the Supreme Court waiting for orders from last week's conference at 9:30, followed by opinions at 10 am.
As John Elwood noted in his Relist Watch, there were only two new relists last week, but lots of cases that have been sticking around for a long time.
Headed in to wait for orders now. Back soon.
There is one new grant, in Stokeling v. US. This is case # 17-5554.
There is a summary reversal in Kisela v. Hughes, a case out of the 9th Circuit involving the shooting by police of a woman holding a knife.
Court rules that it does not need to decide whether Kisela violated the Fourth Amendment when it used deadly force against Hughes. "For even assuming a Fourth Amendment violation occurred--a proposition that is not at all evident-- on these facts Kisela was at least entitled to qualified immunity."
Justice Sotomayor dissents from the summary reversal in Kisela, joined by Ginsburg.
The grant in Stokeling v. US involves whether a state robbery offense that includes "overcoming victim resistance" as an element is a "violent felony" under the Armed Career Criminal Act.
Thanks to Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed for passing on the question presented in Stokeling.
This is my favorite part of Mondays.
There were a lot of cases involving the "violent felony" question and the ACCA kicking around, so I assume this is one of them.
This might be a how long is a piece of string question but do you have any idea how much it costs to take a case to SCOTUS in lawyers fees etc. And when SCOTUS appoints a lawyer for a plaintiff do they get paid and who pays them?
There is a dissent (again, from Sotomayor) from the denial of review in Cozzie v. Florida, a capital case.
Stokeling was one of many cases coming out of the 11th Circuit interpreting Florida's robbery statute, which has some odd features to it.
The live blog is a little quieter than usual today, so far. Thanks as always, Amy, for giving us the instant scoop.
Turning to opinions, we are operating on the same premise as almost every other opinion day, with the possible exception of the last one. We don't know how many opinions we are going to get, and we don't know which ones.
What's the shortest-lived SCOTUS decision (i.e. shortest time between opinion and being overturned via legislation/amendment/overruling opinion)?
We only got one opinion last week: in Hall v. Hall, which was argued in January. So that ruling didn't shed much light on who might be writing in some of the other cases earlier in the term. We are still waiting for four, I believe, from October: Epic Systems v. Lewis (arbitration), Gill v. Whitford (partisan gerrymandering), Jesner v. Arab Bank (Alien Tort Statute & corporations), and Sessions v. Dimaya (immigration).
@oxwof isn't it Chisholm with the 11th amendment?
Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) might be in the running for shortest lived -- overturned within a year by the 11th amendment.
Happy half off Easter Candy day!
Any word/update regarding Justice Kennedy on his retirement or stay status?
Am I correct in thinking that this has been a very slow term for the opinions coming out? And how does this term compare with the number of cases typically taken?
When the federal government agrees with a petitioner that cert. should be granted, where do that put the odds for a grant? That happened recently in Quarles v. U.S. (another ACCA case).
How do you get the orders list? Do they hand them out in the press room at 9:30, or are you hitting refresh on the SCOTUS website?
I think the series of decisions overturned by the Civil Rights Act of 1991 might also be in the running for shortest-lived.
Per Wikipedia: Kennedy has only hired one law clerk so far for 2018; Sotomayor, none.
On shortest-lived decisions, the Ledbetter decision overturned by the Lilly Ledbetter Act would be in the running, too. Extra points for Chisolm, though, because it required an amendment, which is way harder.
Ledbetter was overturned in the first week of the new Obama administration, but that's about 6 months?
For the October cases, four remain and four justices have yet to write a decision for that period: Gorsuch, Roberts, Kagan, and Kennedy.
It should also be noted that Kennedy has not written any opinion (affirm, concurring, or dissent) for almost 6 months, his longest period on record.
What happens if a Justice hires law clerks, but they decide to retire or die before the next term?
Should one expect that Kennedy's hiatus in issuing opinions is because he's working on some hefty ones? Masterpiece or Whitford?
How many cases remain in Nov and Dec for decisions?
I don't know if this would count as "overruling" a case, but Puerto Rico v. Franklin was decided June 13, 2016; followed by the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) enacted June 30, 2016. This had to do with bankruptcy law and Puerto Rico.
One box today. For those of you who may be new or new-ish here, the number of boxes is a *rough* proxy for the number of opinions we might get.
Is hiring clerks a particularly notable sign regarding J. Kennedy's potential retirement? It was my understanding that past retiring justices had also occasionally had a full compliment of clerks for the upcoming term?
Was there a link to the order list?
Going into wait for opinions now. Back soon.
NLRB v. Bildisco & Bildisco, 465 U.S. 513 (1984), was modified by Congress’s enactment of 11 USC 1113 very quickly.
We have one opinion only. It is Encino Motorcars v. Navarro.
The decision is by Justice Thomas, reversing the decision of the Ninth Circuit and remanding the case.
It is 5-4. Thomas is joined by Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, and Gorsuch.
Although it won't come back this quickly, part of me would appreciate a plurality decision in Hughes v. United States.
Question in the case is whether the exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act's overtime-pay requirement for "any salesman, partsman or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles" at car dealerships applies to service advisors -- the people who consult with you about your car's service requirements and sell you service on your car. The answer is that service advisors are exempt from the overtime requirement.
Thomas concludes that service advisors are exempt because they are "salesment primarily engaged in servicing automobiles."
Thomas's summary of his opinion was pretty short, but -- then again - the opinion only comes in at 11 pages.
In Ginsburg's dissent, she counters that "service advisors neither sell nor repair automobiles" and therefore "should remain outside the exemption and within the Act's coverage."
Given the narrowness of the question in Encino, I think it is somewhat surprising to see the 5-4 dissent. But I think there may be a bit of a "meta" fight going on here about textualism and statutory construction.
Ginsburg dissent makes it (barely) onto the 10th page.
How common is it for the Justices to release opinions for cases argued in January when 10 cases from October-December have yet to be decided?
“any salesman, partsman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles” at a covered dealership.
People who sell cars are covered; people who do mechanical service are covered -- but what about people who sell mechanical service. One could easily conclude, I think, that Congress would have covered them, too: Why would Congress leave that narrow band of dealership employee out of the mix? But they seem to fall somewhere just outside the enacted text. The dissenters no doubt feel that if this case were about something other than plaintiffs bringing a cause of action against employers, the strict textualists in the majority would rediscover their insistence on adhering precisely to the enacted text.
This is the kind of case where Justice Scalia's absence is felt -- would have been fun to see a fight between, say, him and Kagan over what this text says. It would also be possible to imagine him saying that the text says what it says, and it doesn't say precisely what the defendants say, and that's Congress's problem rather than the Court's.
Did service advisors even exist when FSLA was enacted? This is in response to Eric’s question.
My guess is that service advisors didn't really exist when the exemption was created, which informs what Congress thought it was doing, but not the meaning of the text it enacted. And this is central to one of the "meta" fights about textualism that I'm pointing out here. Some people want to divine, at least if it seems obvious, what Congress was trying to do with the information it had at the time; some people think we just figure out what the words in the text meant to Congress at the time, and work from there. I think those methods probably point in opposite directions in this case.
Thank you, kind sir. i missed that.
That's all for me today. Happy holidays and cherry blossom season to all.
Thanks, everyone -- until next time!

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.