Hurry up and wait

Supreme Court | A high court conference leaves religious-liberty litigants hanging | Lynn Vincent

The U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 25 left in limbo thousands of litigants, attorneys, and court-watchers when it issued the unusual results of a "mega-conference" held the day before.

As is customary heading into the new term that begins Oct. 1, the nine justices had pow-wowed over a lengthy case list, the summer-recess accumulation of "petitions for certiorari" or "cert"—requests for high-court review. Uncustomary was the court's near-complete post-conference silence on a significant slate of cases involving religious liberty and social issues.

The justices granted review in 17 cases involving matters from patent rights to age bias to taxes to illegal arrest, but kept mum on suits involving freedom of speech, religious rights-of-conscience, church government, asylum, child pornography, and the regulation of sexually oriented businesses. Now, attorneys and parties in those cases must wait at least until Oct. 1 (when the court will likely issue a new list of cert denials) and possibly until the results of the court's next conference, scheduled for Oct. 5.