(My prior response passed its edit date so I'll start again here:) To reiterate, your response is great and much appreciated. > But SCOTUS still "hears" the a

(My prior response passed its edit date so I'll start again here:) To reiterate, your response is great and much appreciated. > But SCOTUS still "hears" the arguments of both sides on the papers. Except in rare cases of ex parte emergencies, the other side always gets a meaningful opportunity to respond and be "heard": that's basic procedural due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. So for the shadow docket, SCOTUS accepts fresh filings from both parties? Or do they only review the existing case from the lower courts. > Neither the parties nor members of the public are typically privy to a trial judge's internal thought process, apart from what ends up in the judge's order. And in the case of appellate courts (whether SCOTUS or otherwise) the group decision-making and voting typically happens in a private gathering of the deciding judges, called a conference. Not even the judges' judicial clerks are allowed to attend that. I mean that, outside the shadow docket, votes are public - we know which judge voted which way. Shadow docket rulings don't reveal each judge's votes, if I understand correctly, though if there are objections they can have clear implications. > My understanding is that virtually all of even the shadow-docket orders contain at least some reasoning (whether or not any of us, or any of the other Justices, agree with that reasoning is beside the point). A major complaint from lower court judges, and others, is that the reasoning is very brief and also vague - the lower court judges don't know what is meant or how to apply them. > But judges are (still) human, and quite adept at finding some grounding in some authority to achieve the result they prefer. I've noticed. I wonder if lower courts will start following SCOTUS's example and issue their own 'emergency docket' rulings.