Our top “closer looks” at the Supreme Court

In late September, we launched our expanded daily newsletter, SCOTUStoday. Since then, we’ve released 71 editions of it, including 61 “A Closer Looks” – which focus on details of the Supreme Court’s work that may be unfamiliar to even diehard court watchers.  

Having now reached the end of 2025, I’ve grouped our closer looks into seven thematic buckets, each of which reflects the wide array of topics we’ve covered this year. 

The first bucket includes 11 closer looks that gave context around current or upcoming cases (see, for example, the First Step Act and the Slaughter argument), while 21 closer looks served as explainers on the court’s history and its practices (such as the justices’ circuit assignments, the highest (basketball) court in the land, and the impeachment of a justice). We used nine to highlight either another SCOTUSblog post or event – from the term preview at the SCOTUSblog Summit to this year’s Red Mass – and five to cover past cases that are key for this term (such as Humphrey’s Executor or Atkins v. Virginia). 

We also sometimes dug into specific petitions to the court – six closer looks focused on these, including Bannon v. United States and petitions up for review at upcoming Supreme Court conferences. The final two categories include the interim docket (five closer looks, including one on just what to call *that* docket) and biographies of past justices (four). 

That’s all well and good, but without further ado, here’s a roundup of my top five favorite closer looks (abridged for convenience): 

1. The Longest Supreme Court Opinion

Supreme Court opinions have grown longer over time, from a median of 2,000 words in the 1950s to roughly 5,300 last term. Yet the record-holder remains the per curiam opinion in 1976’s Buckley v. Valeo, which upheld limits on campaign contributions but struck down spending restrictions. As for the current court, Justice Samuel Alito has a tendency to write lengthy majority opinions, such as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization at 35,631 words. Chief Justice John Roberts leads in majority opinion word count, however, while dissents from Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson are notably verbose. But while longer opinions may signal importance, they aren’t always ideal – as Roberts himself has expressed about legal briefs. 

2. Sovereign Immunity and the Federal Tort Claims Act

On the surface, this may not sound like a very important topic, but the Federal Tort Claims Act has some serious implications. Historically, sovereign immunity shielded the U.S. government from lawsuits unless Congress allowed otherwise. In 1946, the Federal Tort Claims Act waived the United States’ sovereign immunity in circumstances where a government employee was liable for injury, loss of property, or death in the state where the wrongful or negligent act took place – albeit with some controversial exceptions. And some of those exceptions have led to a thicket of cases before the court, including this very term. 

3. A Brief History of Supreme Court Clerkships

A Supreme Court justice’s most lasting influence may come through their clerks, many of whom become judges (or justices) themselves. But clerkships weren’t always around – they began in the late 19th century, and early clerks served a much more ministerial role. Justice Horace Gray hired the first clerk out-of-pocket in 1882, and Congress then funded one per justice in 1886 due to the court’s growing docket. Today, clerks are key, so much so that Justice Amy Coney Barrett recently wrote that it would be “impossible” to describe the work of the modern court without describing the contributions made by them. 

4. The Justices’ Book Deals

Seven of nine current justices – everyone but Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan – have authored books or have book deals, with recent tours by Barrett, Jackson, Sotomayor, and former Justice Anthony Kennedy. That said, justices authoring or editing books is nothing new. In 2012, SCOTUSblog’s own Ronald Collins listed 353 works written or edited by Supreme Court justices, from John Jay to Sandra Day O’Connor. And doing so can be quite lucrative: Financial disclosures show book advances for Jackson and Barrett of $2 million. 

5. The Sad Story of Samuel Chase

Justice Samuel Chase has the distinction of being the only impeached Supreme Court justice. Chase, who sat on the court from 1796 to 1811, was a former Maryland legislator and signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; he was also a fervent opponent of British policies, served in Congress, and later became a Federalist judge. But his temperament wasn’t, well, the finest. He was impeached (along partisan lines) after supposedly refusing to dismiss biased jurors, limiting defense witnesses, preemptively ruling on treason law, and using grand jury charges to rail against his ideological opponents. Nevertheless, Chase’s Senate trial ended in acquittal, and Chase continued serving on the court, although his participation diminished due to declining health, including severe gout that often kept him from sessions. 

For many more closer looks during the coming year, please subscribe to SCOTUStoday. And thank you for being part of the SCOTUSblog community!