[Mariebl]

I'm trying to understand your reasoning here. They said that there is only one case left from the March term. They said that Scalia is the only one without a majority opinion from the sitting.

Supreme Court justices are not guaranteed opportunities to write majority opinions. If Justice Scalia is not in the majority on Heller, he won't be writing the majority opinion. It's that simple. The fact that he hasn't written one this term doesn't mean a thing. I'm feeling optimistic about how Heller will turn out, but there's no point in fantasizing.

[NinoFan]

Actually, it does. The Court tends to share the love when it comes to assigning opinions. If Scalia weren’t writing Heller, he most likely would have been given ANOTHER case from that sitting to write, because that’s just the way the Court (whether the CJ or the senior justice if CJ is not in the majority) does things. That’s just the way it goes.

[green iguana]

but there's no point in fantasizing.

Unless you know more than the folk who write the SCOTUSblog, it hardly seems to be fantasy. To quote them:

"It does look exceptionally likely that Justice Scalia is writing the principal opinion for the Court in Heller – the D.C. guns case. That is the only opinion remaining from the sitting and he is the only member of the Court not to have written a majority opinion from the sitting. There is no indication that he lost a majority from March. His only dissent from the sitting is for two Justices in Indiana v. Edwards. So, that’s a good sign for advocates of a strong individual rights conception of the Second Amendment and a bad sign for D.C."

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Supreme Court justices are not guaranteed opportunities to write majority opinions."

I'm no expert on the Supreme Court, but it appears the way that the blog entry writes is that they may not be guaranteed to write a majority opinion but they get to write at least one majority opinion per sitting. Is this true or no?

[Old Teufel Hunden]

I’m sorry, what I meant to say from my previous post is that it looks like they may not be guaranteed to write a majority opinion but it looks like the way the blogger writes is that usually every judge gets to write one majority and one minority opinion per sitting. While not bound by law, perhaps that is how it usually works.