January 21, 2026 • jed
Though it is not written in the Constitution or its amendments, there is understood to be a background principle that a state cannot be called into the court of another...
January 21, 2026 • jed
This is another case involving the status of federal contractors. Here, we’re considering whether Chevron can remove a case from state courts to federal courts because it was a federal...
January 14, 2026 • jed
The Court released decisions in three cases today, in addition to one from earlier in January. Time to perform an initial assessment of the model’s predictions in this live experiment....
January 14, 2026 • jed
[I’m a little behind on the docket due to the holidays and a few competing deadlines. As I catch up, many of the docket entries will be more abbreviated.] This...
January 14, 2026 • jed
[I’m a little behind on the docket due to the holidays and a few competing deadlines. As I catch up, many of the docket entries will be more abbreviated.] Under...
January 13, 2026 • jed
[I’m a little behind on the docket due to the holidays and a few competing deadlines. As I catch up, many of the docket entries will be more abbreviated.] At...
January 13, 2026 • jed
[I’m a little behind on the docket due to the holidays and a few competing deadlines. As I catch up, many of the docket entries will be more abbreviated.] This...
January 13, 2026 • jed
[I’m a little behind on the docket due to the holidays and a few competing deadlines. As I catch up, many of the docket entries will be more abbreviated.] In...
January 13, 2026 • jed
[I’m a little behind on the docket due to the holidays and a few competing deadlines. As I catch up, many of the docket entries will be more abbreviated.] In...
January 6, 2026 • jed
How should federal courts review determinations by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) about asylum seekers’ claims of persecution? Should federal courts review those claims de novo? Or defer to...
December 11, 2025 • jed
In the fourth blockbuster case of the term, the Court considers the constitutional viability of independent agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission. I have deep interest in this case...
November 30, 2025 • jed
This is another compassionate release case, like Rutherford discussed earlier. The question in Fernandez, though, is whether claims about the weakness of the evidence against the defendant can count as...
November 24, 2025 • jed
At the time of Rutherford’s conviction, multiple firearm offenses required stacking of convictions: a first offense carried a mandatory minimum and each additional count in the same prosecution led to...
November 18, 2025 • jed
Landor is a Rastafarian who grew his hair out as part of his religious practice. While serving a short term in Louisiana state prison, officials shaved his head, even though...
November 17, 2025 • jed
GEO Group is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contractor who is accused by Menocal, a detainee, of forced labor under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. During trial, GEO filed...
November 13, 2025 • jed
Palmquist’s baby declined markedly in health after consuming baby food produced by Hain and sold by Whole Foods. She alleges that the baby food contained heavy metals, such as arsenic...
November 12, 2025 • jed
Suppose a court enters a judgment against you, but it turns out that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over you. Is there a time limit for you to challenge the...
November 11, 2025 • jed
Sovereign immunity generally protects the government from being sued. The Federal Torts Claims Act waives immunity in many circumstances but creates an exception for claims arising out of “ combat...
November 10, 2025 • jed
Suppose a prisoner escapes and is on the run for two years. They’re caught and put back in prison. Do they receive credit towards their original sentence for the time...
November 7, 2025 • jed
In the third blockbuster case of the term, the Court considers whether Trump had authority under to issue his trade and fentanyl-trafficking tariffs. This is a complex and very substantial...
November 3, 2025 • jed
Docket Report: Louisiana v. Callais This is the second blockbuster case of the term, and one with potentially profound implications for our elections. About fifteen years ago , the Court...
October 31, 2025 • jed
Update 1/14/26: Final Experience-5 predictions below. experience-5 predictions Original post: If the police do not have a warrant, and do not have probable cause that an emergency is occurring, can...
October 23, 2025 • jed
Update 11/1/25: The experience-3 model continues to predict reverse (56 percent) but there is considerable uncertainty: the ninety percent band of reversal probability runs from 46 percent to 70 percent....
October 22, 2025 • jed
Update 1/14/26: Final experience-5 predictions below. Update 11/1/25: The current model continues to predict reversal (71 percent). Vote ordering remains mostly unchanged, with possible dissents from a small conservative bloc....
October 21, 2025 • jed
I spent a fair amount of effort exploring various model architectures and configurations, all of which tend to modestly affect performance relative to the configuration for the reported results. However,...
October 10, 2025 • jed
Update 11/1/25: A shift toward the the possibility the Court votes to affirm in the experience-3 model. The probability of reversal dipped to 49 percent. There is uncertainty about that...
October 9, 2025 • jed
Update 1/14/26: Final Experience-5 predictions below. Update 11/1/25: Experience-3 predictions closely resemble earlier predictions: 69 percent chance of reversal. Likely dissent from Thomas; Kagan joins a conservative majority bloc; close...
October 9, 2025 • jed
Update 11/1/25: Experience-3 continues to predict reversal (74 percent) with vote ordering roughly as earlier. I would expect 1-2 dissents, possibly by ideological opposites. Experience-3 predictions Update 10/22/25: The updated...
October 9, 2025 • jed
Update 1/14/26: Final experience-5 prediction below. experience-5 predictions Update 11/1/25: The updated model (experience-3) continues to predict reversal, with roughly the same probability (70 percent). Vote ordering remains roughly the...
October 9, 2025 • jed
Update 11/1/25: The updated model (experience-3) continues to predict reverse (65 percent), though there is a reasonable amount of uncertainty (ninety percent band of 49-75 percent). Four clear reverse votes...
October 9, 2025 • jed
Update 11/1/25: The updated model (experience-3) continues to predict reverse (61 percent), with vote ordering approximately as before. Gorsuch, Barrett, and Kagan are the closest votes. Experience-3 predictions Update 10/22/25:...
October 6, 2025 • jed
Today is the first day of oral arguments and is my self-imposed deadline for committing to early predictions for the term as it exists. I plan to run another experiment...
September 19, 2025 • jed
Often it will be of interest to predict what the Court would do before oral argument, before amicus or party briefs arrive, or before even a cert petition. A lower...
September 18, 2025 • jed
Most published Supreme Court vote predictions include near-term information, including oral argument and amicus data. The earlier predictions I posted included that information, too, and using that information the model...
September 11, 2025 • jed
Update 11/1/25: See the methods page for current model. Initial post: It is notoriously difficult to predict Supreme Court votes. The leading algorithmic approaches produce vote-level predictions with about 70...
September 9, 2025 • jed
Thanks for visiting! A little about me -- I am a professor at Cornell, where I teach and research in public law and quantitative methods. Most of my recent work...