SCOTUSblog On 9/29 Conference

Lyle Denniston writes at SCOTUSblog:

It has taken only a little over a year for the same-sex marriage issue to return to the Court, with the focus solely on state bans, and lawyers on both sides of the controversy have been moving very rapidly to get the issue prepared for the Supreme Court after lower courts had expedited their review. In none of the seven petitions that the Court will be examining is anyone involved resisting Supreme Court review. The Court’s own staff also has moved with dispatch. Some of the seven petitions that will go to the Justices late this month were filed just the day before they were distributed to the Justices — almost unheard of at the Court.

Although no one at the Court said this explicitly, the Justices apparently wanted all seven of the petitions so far filed to be ready for the September 29 Conference, which is to be held a week before the new Term formally opens. The seven petitions present a variety of scenarios with regard to who is appealing and what they are asking. There is no way for outsiders to know exactly what the Justices will be looking for as they go over the seven filings. Those petitions almost certainly will not be the last that the Supreme Court sees in the coming Term. Two other federal appeals courts are poised to rule quite soon, and a third has a case before it but has not yet scheduled a hearing.

Denniston adds that if any case is granted cert by January, a ruling would be expected by “next summer.”