United States Supreme Court Prediction Competition


Welcome to the first-ever United States Supreme Court Prediction Competition sponsored by SCOTUSblog and Bloomberg Law®!

Using the first-class resources provided by Bloomberg Law and SCOTUSblog – including opinions, Supreme Court briefs, Justice profiles, and statutes – your team will have the opportunity to perform research and make its predictions for five cases argued on the merits in April 2012, as well as five cert. petitions that the Court will consider that month.

Once registered, please log in to create your team and invite up to four other students at your school to join. This is also where you will learn which merits cases and cert. petitions you will be researching, read the rules for the competition, view the training schedule, and submit your picks once your research is complete.

Dates to remember:

  • Registration Deadline: March 2
  • Training Deadline: March 9
  • Prediction Submission Deadline: April 11
Participation in the competition is limited to students currently enrolled at one of the following law schools:
  • Columbia Law School
  • Harvard Law School
  • University of Chicago Law School
  • Yale Law School
*UPDATE:

This update addresses questions regarding Justice Kagan’s recusal in Arizona v. United States.  Recusal is not an option in the competition site.  You should enter Justice Kagan as a vote to affirm, because an equally divided court results in affirmance.  If there is an equally divided court, the correct “answer” for the result in the case is affirmance.

In Arizona (and all the cases) you should indicate how you believe that Court will rule on the “principal” question in the case.  For example, if you believe that the Court in the Arizona case will divide as follows — 3 to affirm, 3 to reverse, 2 to affirm in part, reverse in part — your view of the final “vote” in the case should be based on your sense of how the “in part” Justices will vote on the principal question in the case.  So if you believe that they will vote to affirm only on an incidental question or two, you should treat them as votes to reverse.

We recognize that there is some indeterminacy and potential disagreement in what is the “principal” question in the case.  But we regard your judgment on that question as part of the competition.

There should not be any other recusal, but if there is, that Justice’s vote will be counted as a vote to affirm.

 

Results:

Petitions for certiorari:

Skilling v. United States, (No. 11-674) – Denied

Gardner v. Chism, (No. 11-987) – Denied

Sid-Mar’s Restaurant & Lounge, Inc. v. United States,

(No. 11-652) – Denied

Billy A. Merrifield v. Board of County
Commissioners for the County of Santa Fe,
New Mexico, et al., (No. 11-881) – Denied

 

Merits cases:

All merits cases are currently TBD.

 

Please send any questions to: mmallory@scotusblog.com

Thank you again for participating. Good luck!