The Supreme Court continues to make consequential rulings in the shadows. I analyzed tens of thousands of case files from the court’s online archives, parsing through filings to separate simple requests for deadline extensions from challenges to long-established constitutional rights. I discovered that in the term that ended in 2025, the justices issued more substantive decisions on their emergency docket than in cases argued in open court. Experts told me this was likely the first time this has happened in the court’s modern history.
Representatives from the Supreme Court did not respond to my questions.
Since I reported that story in July, more major rulings have been made on the emergency docket, often called the “shadow docket,” where justices rarely hear arguments and often issue unsigned orders that don’t explain how they arrived at their decisions or even how they voted.
These decisions are continuing to come down even after the court began its summer recess. For example:
Though experts told me rulings on the shadow docket have generally enabled Trump, he has not won them all. The USPS ruling, for one, has not pleased the president. Last week, in a post on Truth Social, the social media website he owns, Trump criticized the justices he nominated, writing that they “are not the people I interviewed to serve.”
“It is a Court that will go down as having rendered some of the most destructive, hurtful, and damaging decisions in our Country’s history,” Trump wrote.
Every decision the court has made since July has been on its shadow docket. That will remain the case until the court starts its new term on Oct. 5.
Watch our explainer to learn more about what I uncovered and how the shadow docket works.
