From ssf6 at cornell.edu  Tue Jul  1 08:39:39 2008
From: ssf6 at cornell.edu (LII Editor)
Date: Tue Jul  1 10:32:16 2008
Subject: [liibulletin] LIIBULLETIN, End of the term, thank you,
	and highlights 
Message-ID: <486A258B.7000902@cornell.edu>

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AN E-BULLETIN
LEGAL INFORMATION INSTITUTE -- CORNELL LAW SCHOOL
lii\@lii.law.cornell.edu
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The 2007-2008 Supreme Court term has come to a close, and LIIBULLETIN
now takes a break from publishing until mid-September, when we'll start
previewing the upcoming term. Before we sign off to begin preparing the
autumn previews, though, we wanted to thank the many contributors who
make this bulletin possible:
(http://www.law.cornell.edu/donorlist/ -- see
http://www.law.cornell.edu/donors/ to make a contribution). We hope
you'll hang in there until our schedule resumes.

In the meantime, we leave you with term highlights prepared by LII
Summer Editor Ryan J. Strasser (Cornell Law School Class of 2010):

Highlights of the 2007-2008 Supreme Court term

The 2007-2008 U.S. Supreme Court term proved both intriguing and
unusual for followers of the Court and legal scholars alike. For the
first time in over 65 years, the Supreme Court expounded upon the scope
of Second Amendment gun rights and the contemporary relevance of the
exhaustion doctrine in patent law. The Court also addressed a number of
issues that resulted in unusual justice alignments that deviated from
the expected ideological arrangement. For example, in Greenlaw v.
United States, Ginsburg, Scalia, Thomas, Souter, and Roberts formed the
majority with Alito, Stevens, and Breyer dissenting. Kentucky
Retirement Systems v. EEOC witnessed Breyer, Roberts, Stevens, Souter,
and Thomas joining in the majority opinion, with Kennedy, Scalia,
Ginsburg, and Alito dissenting together. Such alignments have left
commentators wondering whether the academic community overstated its
proclamation of a strictly ideological, conservative Court following
the Roberts and Alito appointments. Scholars consider the decisions in
Boumediene v. Bush, the Guantanamo detainee case, and Kennedy v.
Louisiana, the execution for child rape case, to be liberal opinions,
which indicate that ideology alone will not determine the Court's
jurisprudence in every case.

The 2006-2007 Supreme Court term left a wake in which 30% of cases
ended with a 5-4 split decision. In 2007-2008, however, the Court
witnessed considerably fewer 5-4 splits, as only 17% of cases ended in
this manner. Surprisingly, unanimity also decreased. Nine-to-zero
decisions dropped from 25% last term to 18% this term, though the
number of dissenting votes per decision stayed nearly steady. See
SCOTUS Blog.

Highlights of the term continue at:
< http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/08highlts.html#h >.