ADDED: First up is American Trucking v. LA, a Kagan opinion. They announce opinions in order of seniority, and Kagan is least senior. Something about trucks... and preemption. [ALSO: This case has a concurring opinion from Justice Thomas saying Congress's statute is not supported by the Commerce Clause, "at least in certain contexts."]
AND: A second opinion, Tarrant Regional Water Dist. V. Herrmann, from Sotomayor, the second-least senior. Something about water... and preemption.
NEXT: Third: Ginsburg's opinion, U.S. v. Davila. "This was a case in which the issue was whether there must be an automatic reversal if the judge played any role in the plea bargaining... Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 prohibits judges from participating in plea agreements, but another subsection of the rule also provides that a 'variance from the requirements' of Rule 11 is 'harmless if it does not affect substantial rights,' so this one did not come as a huge surprise."
ALSO: "We have gene patenting. The Court holds that natural isolated DNA is not patentable. Synthetic DNA is patentable." This is a very important case. Unanimous. Thomas wrote the opinion, so that means only Kennedy, Scalia, and Roberts are left to have opinions that might come out today. Here's the PDF of the case, Myriad Genetics. It's a unanimous opinion but Scalia concurs to say:
I join the judgment of the Court, and all of its opinion except Part I–A and some portions of the rest of the opinion going into fine details of molecular biology. I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief. It suffices for me to affirm, having studied the opinions below and the expert briefs presented here, that the portion of DNA isolated from its natural state sought to be patented is identical to that portion of the DNA in its natural state; and that complementary DNA (cDNA) is a synthetic creation not normally present in nature.AND: That's it for today.
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