Earlier this year, SCOTUSblog published the first Interim Relief Docket Stat Pack, a statistical portrait of the Supreme Court's interim/emergency/shadow docket for the 2024-25 term. Now that the 2025-26 term has officially concluded, I've done a second edition, covering Oct. 6, 2025, through Oct. 4, 2026.
The overall picture: The court resolved 123 emergency applications this term: 44 capital cases; 43 refiled applications (when an applicant, after being denied by one justice in chambers, refiles with another); and 36 substantive applications (consisting of the most noticeable work of emergency relief: requests for stays, injunctions, or other intervention in non-capital matters). (Six more are included in the Term Index only: two deferred pending oral argument, three dismissed as moot, and one withdrawn after referral.)
As for a deeper breakdown, some of what follows may be surprising. The 2024-25 term’s surge in emergency applications from the Trump administration, and the court’s willingness to grant them, shaped much of the conversation about this docket. But this term looked different.
The Trump administration filed less and lost more
The court ruled on only nine Trump administration applications this term and granted relief in five (that is, 56%) of them. Last term it granted 19 of 21 (90% of them). Only one of the nine was unanimous, and the administration lost that one. Its cases also took longer than others, averaging 26 days from filing to decision compared with 15 for all other substantive applications.
Fewer substantive applications, a similar grant rate
Substantive cases fell from 49 to 36, a 27% drop. The decline came entirely from the Trump administration, whose substantive cases, as noted, fell from 21 to nine. All other applicants (state/private parties) held steady, going from 26 to 27. The grant rate here barely moved. The court granted relief in 50% of substantive applications (18 of 36), compared with 53% last term.
Public disagreement remains high
Justices publicly disagreed in 61% of substantive applications (22 of 36), down from 76% last term but well above the pre-2014 average of 13.5%. When the court granted relief, at least one justice noted a dissent 89% of the time (16 of 18). When it denied relief, that happened only 33% of the time (6 of 18).
In 91% of the applications that drew a noted dissent (20 of 22), the dissenting justices were all appointed by presidents of the same party. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the court with 15 noted dissents and disagreements, followed by Justice Sonia Sotomayor with 13, and Justice Elena Kagan with 12. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito each noted six, Justice Neil Gorsuch noted two, and Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh each noted one. Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the only justice who did not note a dissent or disagreement in any substantive application.
The court is explaining itself a little more often
One recurring criticism of the interim docket is that the justices fail to explain their decisions on it. Written opinions accompanied 39% of substantive applications, up from 31% last term and 23% in the 2023-24 term. Decisions also came faster, averaging 18 days from filing to decision, down from 30 last term.
The capital and refiled dockets
The court resolved 44 capital applications. It denied every one of the 41 requests to pause an execution. It granted two of the three state requests to let an execution go forward after a lower court had paused it, including one in the last week of the term in the case of Christa Pike. Refiled applications reached a 21-term high at 43. All were denied, and none drew a noted dissent.
What's new this year
This edition adds two things to the Trump administration section. The first is a count of how often each justice sided with the administration, which ranges from eight of nine applications to none. The second sorts the administration's wins and losses by subject area: immigration, elections, and executive power. The administration had a losing record in one of the three, and it may not be the one you expect. For those findings and many more, including issue area breakdowns, opinion lengths, and the full Term Index, please check out the Stat Pack itself, which is available for SCOTUSblog Plus members.
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[ H/T SCOTUSblog ]
