Bonus 233: The (Two) E. Jean Carroll Cases

The Supreme Court keeps "rescheduling" President Trump's cert. petition in one of the two lawsuits he lost to E. Jean Carroll. The *other* lawsuit may be the (unexplained and unpersuasive) reason why.

With the Supreme Court expected to hand down more opinions tomorrow, I thought I’d drop this week’s bonus issue on Wednesday—lest it get lost in whatever news the justices make by mid-morning on Thursday. In particular, it seemed worth bringing folks up to speed on the two lawsuits between President Trump and E. Jean Carroll, including a cert. petition Trump filed last November in one of them that the Supreme Court “rescheduled” yesterday for the 15th(!) straight Conference (more on what that means below).

There’s a lot going on, both procedurally and substantively, in the Carroll cases, and I’ll get into more of the background below the fold. But to preview the two takeaways that seem especially significant to me, first, some number of justices appear to be holding Trump’s first appeal for his second—even though the cases have almost nothing to do with each other at least on the legal questions they present, and even though they’ve been holding the first one since long before anyone told them that the second one was coming. It’s more than a little difficult to imagine that this would happen if the petitioner were anyone other than President Trump.

And second, regardless of what ultimately happens in either case, the Court’s behavior provides yet another reminder of how much of the Court’s internal processes (like its discretion to perpetually “reschedule” a cert. petition without ever explaining why it did so) are effectively inscrutable to anyone outside the building. Not for the first time, you need a heck of a lot more than a scorecard to identify all the players.

For those who aren’t paid subscribers, we’ll be back with our regular coverage of the Court (no later than) Monday. For those who are, please read on.