WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court took no action Friday on the closely watched cases involving the Defense of Marriage Act or California's Proposition 8.
After a day in which the court was scheduled to consider 10 different petitions addressing same-sex couples' relationship claims, an order posted on the Supreme Court's website about 3:30 p.m. added two new cases to the court's docket — but made no reference to any of the cases challenging DOMA or the challenge to Proposition 8 or an Arizona law rescinding domestic partner benefits for state employees.
Because the court did announce two new cases in which it granted certiorari, it is unlikely that the court will announce any other new grants, as they are called, on Monday when it would be expected to issue its order list from Friday's conference. As noted by SCOTUSblog, the "[f]ailure to act on [the marriage-related cases] today prob[ably] means [the Supreme Court] needs time to work out which case(s) to take."
If that is so, the justices are next scheduled to meet in conference to consider new cases on Dec. 7.
Others have noted that other reasons, such as a justice writing a dissent to whatever decision was made about hearing or not hearing one of the couples' rights cases, could be the reason for the lack of any news on Friday.