Once is an accident, twice…

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Yesterday, SCOTUS announced a unanimous decision against law enforcement searching personal phones without a warrant. That unanimous decision was a rarity.

So we thought.

Two more decisions were announced today. The first was a suit against Obama’s ‘recess’ appointments to the NRLB. The suit contents the appointments were illegal because Congress was not in recess. The Executive, Obama, cannot decide if/when Congress is in recess. Only Congress, the legislative branch, can make that decision. Obama lost 9-0. Another unanimous decision by SCOTUS.

Supreme Court strikes down Obama recess appointments

By JOSH GERSTEIN and JOHN BRESNAHAN | 6/26/14 10:19 AM EDT Updated: 6/26/14 10:39 AM EDT

In a rebuke to President Barack Obama, the Supreme Court struck down three of his recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board as unconstitutional.

The decision gives the Senate broad power to thwart future recess appointments, but did not go as far as some conservatives hoped to undercut the president’s ability to fill vacant executive branch posts and judicial slots.

The court ruled 9-0 that Obama’s appointments were unconstitutional because the Senate was not truly in recess when he made them during a three-day break in pro forma meetings of the Senate.

You can read the entire column here.

The second decision was McCullen v. Coakley. The Massachusetts state government passed a law prohibiting abortion protesters within 35 feet of an abortion facility and expressly banning them from public sidewalks and other public areas. The Court struck down the Massachusetts law, again on a 9-0 vote, as violating the 1st Amendment by prohibiting protests on public property.

U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Mass. Abortion Buffer Zone Law

June 26, 2014 11:30 AM

WASHINGTON (CBS/AP) – The United States Supreme Court has struck down the Massachusetts buffer zone law that excluded protesters outside abortion clinics.

The unanimous decision released Thursday morning overturns the state law setting a 35-foot protest-free zone outside the clinics, saying it violates the First Amendment rights of protesters.

Chief Justice John Roberts said authorities have less intrusive ways to deal with problems outside the clinics.

While the court was unanimous in the outcome, Roberts joined with the four liberal justices to strike down the buffer zone on narrow grounds.

In a separate opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia criticized Roberts’ opinion for carrying forward “this court’s practice of giving abortion-rights advocates a pass when it comes to suppressing the free-speech rights of their opponents.”

Liberal and conservative justices alike expressed misgivings about the law during arguments at the high court back in January.

This is the third unanimous decision released in two days. The old adage, “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, thrice is a conspiracy.” Some across the country would like to believe the latter, that the liberals on the Court have realized that Obama will not last forever and their fortunes lies elsewhere—they are no longer dependent on Obama.

Another opinion is that the easy decisions are being announced first and the more contentious will be released tomorrow, or next week. They also believe that the unanimous decisions just aren’t all that rare as many believe.

At the Supreme Court, an uptick in unanimity

Richard Wolf, USA TODAY 12:06 a.m. EDT June 22, 2014

WASHINGTON — Amid the discord and dysfunction in the nation’s capital comes this curiosity: a more united Supreme Court.

For the first time under Chief Justice John Roberts, the high court will complete its term June 30 with more than half the cases decided unanimously. Just five years ago, fewer than one-third of the cases carried that distinction.

While the number of 9-0 rulings has grown, the number of 5-4 decisions has shrunk — even though the court has five justices named by Republican presidents and four by Democrats. Only eight cases have come out that way so far; last term, there were 23.

One reason for the Kumbaya quotient: less-controversial cases. The current term does not include anything as divisive as last year’s same-sex marriage, voting rights and affirmative action cases. Nor does it have a marquee case, such as the 2012 showdown over President Obama’s health-care law.

Another factor could be afoot as well: Roberts has strived for agreement among the justices whenever possible, often by steering the court toward narrow rather than sweeping verdicts.

“It seems to me that Roberts deserves at least some of the credit,” says Michael McConnell, a former U.S. Court of Appeals judge now teaching at Stanford Law School.

Out of 57 argued cases that have been decided by the court since October, 36 have produced unanimous judgments. Many of those were in technical areas of the law not prone to ideological division: patents, taxes, bankruptcy, civil and criminal procedure, and matters involving legal jurisdiction.

Yet even on cases involving constitutional issues such as freedom of speech, the court often has spoken with one voice. Justices united this week behind a ruling that political speech is protected even when its accuracy is in doubt; they also voted unanimously against free-speech rights of protesters deemed a potential threat by the Secret Service or military authorities.

Some of the most controversial cases of the term, on the other hand, have been decided narrowly. Those include 5-4 rulings by the court’s conservative majority that allowed wealthy donors to spread more money around political campaigns and Christian clergy to dominate the prayers invoked at local government meetings.

…

Experts on the high court have several theories for the uptick in unanimous rulings. Some cite a large number of concurring opinions from justices who agreed with a ruling’s judgment but for different reasons, rather than dissenting. Others note the number of cases that came to the court with most lower courts in agreement, rather than a deep split. Still others single out seemingly aberrant rulings from appellate courts that cried out for reversal.

Most agree the trend is a result of the cases themselves, rather than any fledgling change in the court’s dynamics. And they warn it may not last — perhaps not even into next week.

Whatever the reason, the sudden unanimity of the Court is surprising to everyone.

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