We are still waiting for a decision in Medellin v. Texas, argued October 10. (Briefs are here; argument transcript here.) This is the case on the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and the International Court of Justice decision on the cases of 50+ Mexican nationals on death row in the United States.

The Court picked some low-hanging fruit today. In New York State Bd. of Elections v. Lopez Torres, the Court answered the question of whether the federal constitution requires primaries in state judicial elections. (Answer, without dissent: of course not.) The opinion is by Justice Scalia, and the case was argued October 3. There is also an eyes-glaze-over tax case, Knight v. Commissioner. This is a unanimous opinion by Chief Justice Roberts in a case argued a mere 7 weeks ago.

At this point, we can start playing the SCOTUS-watchers' favorite parlor game, guessing the outcome of the remaining October cases by guessing which justice they are assigned to. There were nine cases on the initial calendar, but one of them was one-lined per curiam when Justice Kennedy was recused and the others split 4-4. Opinions from that session have been written by Stevens (Gall), Souter (Watson), Ginsburg (Kimbrough), Kennedy (Stoneridge), and Scalia (today's New York case). Assuming the opinions are spread among the justices, as they generally are, this leaves four justices (Roberts, Thomas, Breyer, and Alito) and three cases. In addition to Medellin, there is Washington State Grange, on that state's primary election law, and United States v. Santos, on money laundering.

I expect that Roberts, Thomas, and Alito will all vote for the State in this case. If so, Medellin would win only if Breyer is writing the opinion, and he would be doing that only if Stevens assigned it to him. I'm inclined to think that Stevens would have kept a blockbuster case on presidential power and international court relations for himself if he were making the assignment, but that is admittedly just speculation at this point. Stayed tuned.