Upon Further Review

The U.S. Supreme Court's recently concluded 2016-2017 term will most likely be remembered as the term in which the court largely avoided the ­limelight as it awaited the arrival of a ninth justice, who joined the court only in time for its final two-week oral argument session. Although the court did decide some high-profile cases, there were far fewer than in recent terms. That could be about to change, however, now that the court has returned to full strength.

The 70 opinions that the court issued this past term marks the fewest in quite some time. Notwithstanding the court's reduced output, our nation's highest court last term managed to decide nine cases involving conflicts that implicated our own Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Two of the cases that the Supreme Court decided this past term arose directly from the Third Circuit. In both cases, the Supreme Court reversed. In an additional seven cases, the Supreme Court expressly noted that it was resolving conflicts that involved the Third Circuit. In four of those seven cases, the Supreme Court agreed with the Third Circuit's approach, while in the remaining three cases the Supreme Court disagreed with the Third Circuit's approach. Thus, the Third Circuit's overall approval rate in the Supreme Court this past term was 44 percent, a vast improvement over last term's 25 percent approval rate.