Fantasy SCOTUS

FantasySCOTUS: The Final Countdown and Final Predictions

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The Tenth Justice Fantasy SCOTUS League.jpgTomorrow — Monday, June 28, 2010 — will be a day that will live in SCOTUS fame for quite some time. At 10 a.m., the Supreme Court will hand down the remaining opinions in Bilski v. Kappos, Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts, LLP v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, and, most importantly, McDonald v. City of Chicago. Across the street at 12:30 p.m., Elena Kagan will begin her confirmation hearing. Supreme Court overload!

In this post, we provide final predictions for those four huge cases. Additionally, we will provide an overview of how accurate FantasySCOTUS predictions were for the cases decided in June, including Stop The Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, City of Ontario v. Quon, New Process Steel v. National Labor Relations Board, and Doe v. Reed.

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FantasySCOTUS: Revisiting American Needle, Graham v. Florida, Comstock, and Berghuis

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The Tenth Justice Fantasy SCOTUS League.jpgThe Supreme Court is headed down the home stretch. Of the 86 cases argued during the October 2009 term, 59 have been decided and only 27 are remaining.

While we are still waiting for results the biggest cases of the term, including McDonald v. Chicago, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, and Doe v. Reed, the Supreme Court handed down several significant cases in May: American Needle v. NFL, Graham v. Florida, Carr v. United States, Berghuis v. Thompkins, United States v. Comstock, and Levin v. Commerce Energy.

In this post, we will revisit our predictions and compare them to the outcomes. We will use our standard measures to explain how confident we were of our decisions, and how accurate our forecasts were.

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FantasySCOTUS: What’s Taking Them So Long? Predictions for McDonald, CLS, PCAOB, Doe, and Bilksi

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The Tenth Justice Fantasy SCOTUS League.jpgWith Kagan’s nomination set, and all oral arguments for the October 2009 Term completed, we are still waiting for some major decisions — specifically, McDonald v. Chicago, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, Free Enterprise v. PCAOB, Bilski v. Kappos, and Doe v. Reed. In this post, we will offer predictions for these huge cases. Additionally, our statistics might also give us an insight into what is causing the delay within the SCOTUS on handing down these opinions.

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FantasySCOTUS: Enough About Kagan! What about the cases?

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The Tenth Justice Fantasy SCOTUS League.jpgNeed a SCOTUS diversion from the Kagan-Palooza? Look no further (although we will note that FantasySCOTUS.net correctly predicted Kagan would get the nod from the very beginning).

The Supreme Court decided several important cases during the month of April, and in this post we will consider them, and see how accurate the league was in predicting those cases. We take a look at United States v. Stevens, Perdue, Merck Co., Stolt Nielsen, and Salazar v. Buono. While our members did not predict that vandals would reverse the Supreme Court’s opinion in Salazar by stealing the memorial cross, these diverse cases help to explain user perceptions of these issues, and in what circumstances predictions are less precise.

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FantasySCOTUS Predictions of the Next Justice: Team Kagan v. Team Wood v. Team Garland

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Who will replace Justice John Paul Stevens? While pundits, savants, and oracles across the SCOTUSphere pontificate and read Article III tea leaves, FantasySCOTUS.net conducted extensive and detailed polling to predict the next Justice. We have invited our nearly 5,000 members – who represent some of the closest and most ardent Court watchers – to weigh in on the vacancy, rank the candidates on the short list, and give their views on the potential nominees. We are still collecting data.

This is the third in a series of posts breaking down this data, as we attempt to add some certainty to the vast amounts of uncertainty emanating from the penumbras of the upcoming vacancy.

This week, we pit Elena Kagan, Diane Wood, and Merrick Garland in a head-to-head-to-head confirmation death match…

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FantasySCOTUS: What Do Liberals, Conservatives, Moderates, and Libertarians Think of the SCOTUS Short List?

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Who will replace Justice John Paul Stevens? While pundits, savants, and oracles across the SCOTUSphere pontificate and read Article III tea leaves, FantasySCOTUS.net conducted extensive and detailed polling to predict the next Justice. We have invited our nearly 5,000 members –- who represent some of the closest and most ardent Court watchers -– to weigh in on the vacancy, rank the candidates on the short list, and give their views on the potential
nominees.

This is the second in a series of posts breaking down this data, as we attempt to add some certainty to the vast amounts of uncertainty emanating from the penumbras of the
upcoming vacancy.

Are Elena Kagan’s liberal bona fides established, or would Diane Wood be the better progressive pick? Glenn Greenwald, among others on the left, have written sharply that Kagan is not a proper progressive pick. Others on the left have rushed to Kagan’s defense, and Greenwald has replied in kind.

In this installment, we break down the picks based on self-identified ideologies: liberals, moderates, conservatives, and libertarians…

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Fantasy SCOTUS: Predictions for Justice Stevens’s Replacement

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Who will replace Justice John Paul Stevens? While pundits, savants, and oracles across the SCOTUSphere pontificate and read Article III tea leaves, FantasySCOTUS.net conducted extensive and detailed polling to predict the next Justice. We have invited our nearly 5,000 members–who represent some of the closest and most ardent Court watchers–to weigh in on the vacancy, rank the candidates on the short list, and give their views on the potential nominees.

(We are still collecting data. Sign up for free at www.fantasyscotus.net and voice your opinion.)

This is the first in a series of posts breaking down his data, as we attempt to add some certainty to the vast amounts of uncertainty emanating from the penumbras of the upcoming vacancy…

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FantasySCOTUS: Comparing Predictions from Cert Grant to Decision Day

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In this week’s 10th Justice, we consider how predictions for cases are spread out over time, both before and after oral arguments, and how the statistics for the sets differ throughout the lifecycle of a case.

In this context, we will discuss three different cases: Bilski v. Kappos, Alabama v. North Carolina, and McDonald v. City of Chicago. Although these cases have slightly different characteristics, timing in the term, and total number of predictions, the three cases serve as examples of different interest level strata.
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FantasySCOTUS: Predictions for Bilski, American Needle, Stop the Beach, PCAOB, Black, and Graham

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The Supreme Court has yet to decide 56 cases for the October 2009 term. In this installment, we provide predictions for Bilski v. Kappos, American Needle Inc. v. NFL, Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts, LLP v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, Black v. United States, and Graham v. Florida.

American Needle considers whether the National Football League, its teams, and their licensing agent’s function as a single entity for purposes of the Sherman Act. A majority, 60% of the members of the league are predicting an affirmance of the lower court, at a 95% confidence. The SMRs show a tendency for the liberal justices to join with the conservatives in this decision, with Sotomayor most likely to join in the majority.

Stop the Beach considers the limits on state authority to restore storm-eroded beaches or lakefronts. Eighty-four percent of the members of the league are predicting that the Supreme Court affirms the Florida Supreme Court. In this case, the SMRs show that there is a strong potential for a conservative objection to the majority position, with Thomas possibly being the most vocal objection. This is not a big surprise in light of Justice Thomas’ staunch defense of property rights. The liberal justices are really strong for this case. Though Stevens’ low SMR is due to the fact he has already recused himself from this decision. Though, not everyone has followed this news, and some have cast votes for Stevens.

Predictions for PCAOB, Black, Graham, and Bilski, at JoshBlackman.com.

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FantasySCOTUS.net: Counting the Cheaters and Reviewing Recent Cases

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The Tenth Justice Fantasy SCOTUS League.jpgEd. note: ATL has teamed up with the 10th Justice to predict how the Supreme Court may decide upcoming cases. CNN has called FantasySCOTUS the “hottest new fantasy-league game.”

In this week’s column we will dig deeper, and figure out exactly how many people cheated on predictions, and whether this cheating had any impact on the results. Additionally, we will revisit five cases recently decided: Johnson v. US, Bloate v. US, Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick, Milavetz, and Mac’s Shell Service v. Shell Oil.

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