What Took So Long In Chiles?

I give a lot of thought to timing on the Supreme Court. Internal deliberations are usually a black box, unless there are some leaks. All we know for sure is when a case is argued and when it is decided.

Today, the Court decided Chiles v. Salazar. This case was argued six months ago on October 7. The vote was 8-1. Justice Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion, which was about twenty-pages long. Justice Kagan wrote a short concurrence, joined by Justice Sotomayor, that was about four pages long. Justice Jackson wrote a solo dissent that spanned more than thirty pages.

Why did this case take six months? It seems pretty clear the majority opinion coalesced fairly early on. There is not much daylight between the majority and the concurrence. I have to imagine that Justice Gorsuch circulated his majority opinion fairly quickly. There are no footnotes suggesting attempts to modify or water-down the majority opinion.

What we don’t know is how Justice Jackson affected the process. The majority opinion offers a few citations to Jackson’s dissent, but there is no lengthy back-and-forth. I don’t think there was much engagement here at all. Indeed, it is telling that Justice Kagan felt compelled to respond to Justice Jackson in a footnote.

This opinion also makes me think about Callais, which was argued on October 15. I doubt that case will be 8-1. But it may take around the same time, if not longer.

For those who care about such things, Justice Alito is the only Justice who has not yet written a majority opinion from October.