The Supreme Court grants a mere one percent of the petitions it receives each year, and each week it lets the public know which cases have been accepted (referred to as “certiorari granted”), which have been denied and which require more information from the litigants.

Sometimes a justice may have a conflict of interests that would prevent him or her from sitting on a case should it be granted, such as owning a certain stock, having ruled on the case as a lower court judge or family ties to a case. As such, the justices may also sit out of the certiorari process, and in the weekly orders it’s noted that a certain justice “took no part” in the decision whether to hear that case – hence the name of the blog.

But – here’s the key – the justices never explain their reason for recusal, creating an information vacuum that harms the court’s accountability. It also begs the question that, if it’s up to each justice, and each justice alone, to decide whether to recuse, are there times in which such a decision is made improperly?

In the absence of any of this information, we’re left to try and put the pieces together, and this blog is Fix the Court’s periodic attempt to do just that.

Below are TNPs (“took no part”s) from the court’s January 12 orders:

 
14-410: GOOGLE, INC. V. ORACLE AMERICA, INC.
Result: CVSG, relisted
Recused justice: Alito
Presumed reason: According to his 2013 financial disclosure report, Justice Alito holds between $100,001 and $250,000 in Oracle stock.

14-310: COHEN, NEILAND, ET AL. V. UNITED STATES
Result: Certiorari denied
Recused justice: Kagan
Presumed reason: Unclear. The case dates back to 2005, at a time when the IRS was still collecting long-distance taxes, even though the burgeoning mobile phone industry was tying its charges to time alone and not time and distance. Petitioners had been looking for tax refunds, and given the various iterations this case has taken in the intervening decade, it’s unclear at what point Justice Kagan would have come in contact with the litigants.

14-463: WANG, CHUAN V. IBM, ET AL.
Result: Certiorari denied
Recused justice: Breyer
Presumed reason: According to his 2013 financial disclosure report, Justice Breyer holds between $50,001 and $100,000 in Oracle stock.

14-560: FORTRES GRAND CORP. V. WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT
Result: Certiorari denied
Recused justice: Roberts
Presumed reason: According to his 2013 financial disclosure report, Chief Justice Roberts holds between $250,001 and $500,000 in Time Warner stock, the parent company of Warner Bros.

14-6905: JOHNSON, CHARLES W. V. USDC ND CA
Result: Certiorari denied
Recused justice: Breyer
Presumed reason: Justice Breyer’s brother, a federal judge, serves on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

14-7136: JEFFERSON, RANDY V. UNITED STATES
Result: Certiorari denied
Recused justice: Kagan
Presumed reason: Unclear. Jefferson, a Wisconsin native, pleaded guilty to a drug charge in 2007 but believes his attorney at the trial stage did not give him effective assistance, so he sued for post-conviction relief – but missed the deadline by almost four years.

14-7282: SACCOCCIA, STEPHEN A. V. FARLEY, WARDEN
Result: Certiorari denied
Recused justice: Kagan
Presumed reason: Unclear. According to TIME, Stephen Saccoccia was “one of the country’s biggest, savviest and most wanted money launderers for Colombia’s drug cartels” until his 2001 arrest in Geneva, Switzerland. Saccoccia believes his 660-year sentence should be shortened because the district court miscalculated the amount of money he laundered (gross vs. net), and it’s unclear where Justice Kagan appears in this story.

14-7370: SUESUE, DENNIS V. UNITED STATES
Result: Certiorari denied
Recused justice: Kagan
Presumed reason: Unclear. A federal prisoner is claiming ineffective assistance of counsel during his jury conviction for assaulting a federal agent, and it’s unclear where Justice Kagan appears in this story, though given that the U.S. is the defendant, it’s likely the recusal due to Justice Kagan’s work as solicitor general prior to her appointment to the Supreme Court.

14-7432: CLARK, JACK V. UNITED STATES
Result: Certiorari denied
Recused justice: Kagan
Presumed reason: Unclear (see above).

14-7504: MUI, YICK V. UNITED STATES
Result: Certiorari denied
Recused justice: Sotomayor
Presumed reason: This case was filed in the Second Circuit in 1999 while Justice Sotomayor was a member of that appeals court.

14-7528: ROBINSON, RUSSELL E. V. KASTNER, WARDEN
Result: Certiorari denied
Recused justice: Kagan
Presumed reason: Unclear. Robinson is appealing a drug trafficking sentence that begin in the U.S. Virgin Islands and ended up in Oklahoma, where he is a prisoner at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City. It unclear how and when Justice Kagan would have been involved in this case.

14-7551: IN RE JULIO C. LOPEZ-PENA
Result: Habeas corpus denied
Recused justice: Kagan
Presumed reason: Unclear. According to a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, “Julio Cesar Lopez-Pena is one of the most significant narcotics traffickers ever to be extradited from Colombia, both because of the breadth and volume of his drug trafficking activity and the violence with which he conducted his operation.” But it’s unclear exactly when Justice Kagan would have become involved in this case.

14-6669: GROVES, DEVON V. UNITED STATES
Result: Rehearing denied
Recused justice: Kagan
Presumed reason: Unclear, though given that the U.S. is the defendant, it’s likely the recusal due to Justice Kagan’s work as solicitor general prior to her appointment to the Supreme Court.