Good morning and welcome to Supreme Court Brief. After a busy Monday with orders and opinions, more opinions are possible tomorrow. Scroll down for a snapshot from the latest financial disclosures, and we reach out to McDermott Will's Paul Hughes and Orrick's Kelsi Corkran for their thoughts on the court's denial of a raft of qualified immunity petitions. Plus: Justice Alito had sharp words in a pair of dissents this week.

Thanks for reading, and your feedback is welcome and appreciated. Contact Marcia Coyle at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @MarciaCoyle. And contact SCB contributor Tony Mauro at [email protected] and on Twitter at @Tonymauro.

Summer School Gigs: Not What They Used to Be

It used to be that the ending date of the Supreme Court's term could be determined by finding out when Justice William Brennan booked his ferry ticket to Nantucket for his summer break.

More recently, the justices' summer whereabouts could often be found by finding out the date and location of well-publicized, far-flung summer law school teaching gigs.

But that too has faded, according to the 2019 financial disclosure forms filed by the justices and released last week. (One caveat: Justices Samuel Alito Jr. and Neil Gorsuch got extensions, which are allowed, so their forms are not available.)

The only justice who listed a paid summer teaching position in 2019 was Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was paid $12,500.04 by Antonin Scalia Law School for teaching last summer at Runnymede, England, the home of the Magna Carta. (Gorsuch taught for the Scalia law school in Padua, Italy, but it is not yet known how much he was paid.)

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. taught at Nashville School of Law in September, but was only reimbursed for travel and lodging. Justice Elena Kagan taught at Harvard Law School last fall and was paid $17,500, according to her disclosure form.

With the pandemic scrambling all kinds of travel plans, it may be that none of the justices will fly to faraway law school programs this summer. All of the Scalia Law School's summer programs this year, for example, will be online. —Tony Mauro

As Term Nears End, Alito's Pencil Is Sharp

It's that time of year when pressure mounts on the drafting of opinions and the justices' pencils seem sharper than usual.

Writing in dissent from a per curiam GVR (grant, vacate and remand) in a death case involving alleged ineffective assistance of counsel, Justice Samuel Alito Jr., joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, said the ground for his colleagues' decision to discard the dispute was "hard to take seriously." The majority said it was unclear whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals "at all" had considered the prejudice prong of the court test for ineffective assistance of counsel.

Alito claimed the Texas court's one sentence decision was an "express statement" that it had. He wrote: "Perhaps the court thinks the CCA should have used CAPITAL LETTERS or bold type. Or maybe it should have added: 'And we really mean it!!!'"

In the landmark gay rights ruling on Monday, Alito, again in dissent, wrote: "The court attempts to pass off its decision as the inevitable product of the textualist school of statutory interpretation championed by our late colleague Justice [Antonin] Scalia, but no one should be fooled. The court's opinion is like a pirate ship. It sails under a textualist flag, but what it actually represents is a theory of statutory interpretation that Justice Scalia excoriate."

Alito wrote of the majority opinion: "A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall." And about the majority's reading of Title VII's text as unambiguous, he wrote: "The arrogance of this argument is breathtaking."

By all accounts, Alito's language is rather mild compared to the wicked pen of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. But there are 16 cases left to be decided. —Marcia Coyle

About Those Qualified Immunity Denials…

Among the eight qualified immunity petitions denied by the justices on Monday were two by McDermott Will & Emery partner Paul Hughes in which he urged the court to recalibrate or reverse their doctrine of qualified immunity. Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe partner Kelsi Corkran still has a petition pending in which she asks whether the doctrine should be narrowed or abolished.

Hughes and Corkran, in their own words below, offered some thoughts on what the justices might be thinking about the doctrine which has become part of the national debate over reforming police practices following the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody.

>> Hughes told Supreme Court Brief: "Some of the petitions denied presented broad questions about reversing or reconsidering the court's doctrine. The denials may signal the court is not interested in addressing those questions in the near term. Ity may be a signal to advocates to go back to the drawing board on how to approach qualified immunity in a narrower way.

Given there's been such congressional attention focused on qualified immunity, the court may hit pause until it settles out what will or will not happen with the legislative side.

That this group of cert petitions was addressed sort of simultaneously with unprecedented congressional and national attention on qualified immunity created an unexpected situation. It made an environment where perhaps some justices thought this is an issue now in the congressional arena while some in Congress and in the public thought qualified immunity was a judicial creation and it belongs at the Supreme Court for resolution. I think it might take a little time to figure out where the next move might be.

For many years the court engaged in per curiam reversals of qualified immunity cases. We haven't seen that in a while. It will be interesting to see if it retreats from that practice. It might signal the court is balancing itself, but time will tell."

>> And Corkran offered her insight: "I am still optimistic about Taylor (v. Riojas) for two reasons: We will be up at the long conference in October. I think the denials this week could be at least partly attributable to the renewed effort to get a legislative solution. It's possible the court wants to wait to see if that gets any traction. If it doesn't, we should know that by October.

In Taylor, we present the court with the opportunity to reconsider the doctrine but we also have two other questions about circuit splits. We're optimistic even if the court isn't ready yet to reconsider wholesale the doctrine, it would be interested in cleaning up the doctrine.

The fact that Justice [Clarence] Thomas took time to write a dissent in one of the denials says something to me as well when you start to count votes for reconsideration. It's not over at this point." —Marcia Coyle

SCOTUS Headlines: What We're Reading

The Rising Trump Lawyer Battling to Reshape the Electorate. "His work for Mr. Trump has centered on the president's efforts, now before the Supreme Court, to keep his tax returns private—in the course of which Mr. [William] Consovoy famously claimed that the president could not be prosecuted while in office, even for shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue. But it is his work on voting cases across the country that is drawing increasing attention in this presidential election year roiled by pandemic and protest." [NYT]

Supreme Court Justice Breyer Discusses Landmark BGLTQ Case, Remote Oral Arguments at Harvard Hillel Talk. Last month's historic telephonic arguments had "less dialogue" than in-court sessions, Justice Stephen Breyer said. "There's less of a chance of getting what I call the best kind of discussion, and that's when you get the lawyer to forget he has a client," he said. "It's more polite." [Harvard Crimson]

Gorsuch, Conservative Favorite Appointed by Trump, Leads Way on Landmark Decision. "Justice Scalia left a legacy as one of the court's most fiercely conservative members, and while more courteous and mild mannered than his predecessor, Justice Gorsuch has largely echoed his legal philosophy from the bench. Until now." [NYT] Read more here at NLJ and CNN has coverage here. Read USA Today reporting here.

Indiana Petitions U.S. Supreme Court to Take Same-Sex Parents' Birth Certificate Case. "Continuing its fight over parentage, Indiana has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the appellate court ruling that allowed non-birth mothers in a same-sex marriage to be listed as parents on their children's birth certificates." [Indiana Lawyer] Read the petition.

Breaking With Tradition, Some Judges Speak Out on Racial Injustices. "For courts, whose culture and codes of conduct discourage judges from commenting beyond their published decisions, the racial-justice statements are something new and remarkable." Jeremy Fogel, head of the University of California's Berkeley Judicial Institute, said: "I don't remember anything like this happening in the years I've been following the judiciary and been a part of the judiciary. This feels like a tipping point." [WSJ]

Supreme Court Turns Down Cases Challenging Immunity Protections for Police. "The Supreme Court on Monday turned away several appeals asking the justices to revisit a legal doctrine that often provides immunity to police officers accused of abuse. The court's move will keep it on the sidelines of a brewing national debate over the leeway law enforcement enjoys to treat suspects and others without regard to their constitutional rights." [WSJ] Reuters has more here.

Recent SCOTUS Reversal a 'Boon for International Commerce'. "Going forward, GE Energy v. Outokumpu will stand for the important proposition that U.S. courts must treat international arbitration agreements as favorably as domestic ones," lawyers from Jones Day, including Shay Dvoretzky, write. [NLJ]

'Do Better': Holland & Knight Team Asks SCOTUS to Review Bar's Approach to Mental Illness. Holland & Knight legal profession co-chair Trisha Rich and appellate chair Laurie Daniel, are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a ruling by the Illinois justices that let the state bar committee's decision stand. [NLJ] Read the petition.