Fantasy SCOTUS

Someone finally did it: fantasy Supreme Court! This has long struck me as a natural fit for competitive folks who also happen to be overly attentive to what the Supreme Court does. But I never could settle on how exactly it would work. Well, Josh Blackman, government lawyer and "big Supreme Court nerd," figured it out:

Here are the basic rules. For each case the Supreme Court grants Cert, you will predict:

* The Outcome: Affirm or Reverse the lower Court. You will recieve 1 point for predicting the outcome correctly.
* The Split: 5/4, 6/3, 7/2, 8/1, 9/0, or 4-1-4 , or Fragmented (no discernible majority opinion). You will receive 3 points for predicting the split.
* Which Justices are in the Majority and which are in the Minority. You will receive 1 point for each Justice correctly guessed. No points for recusals.

The great thing about this is that it gives me a reason to read up on the less exciting cases SCOTUS handles (Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Carpenter, anyone?), which I am less vigilant about now that I am out of school. Well, that, and competition is fun.

I am still working my way through the pending cases list, making my predictions. It's pretty tough because we don't know what Sotomayor will do; I'm forced to just assume she'll vote with the liberal bloc. And it's tempting to just go 5-4 on everything, but you never know when a 7-2 will sneak in there!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 (tags↓)
SCOTUS