Tom Goldstein predicts the outcomes (and the authors) of the final 4 Supreme Court cases of this Term.

To be announced tomorrow morning:

1. Bilski v. Kappos:

The only Justice who has not issued a majority opinion from [the November] sitting is Justice Stevens, which makes him the very likely author. Justice Stevens tends to take a narrow view of patent rights...

I ultimately predict that the Bilski majority opinion will be authored by Justice Stevens and that the decision will be very significant in its narrowing of the scope of method patents.

2. Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board:

[N]either the Chief Justice nor Justice Kennedy has authored an opinion from [the December] sitting... [but] Chief is ... unlikely to leave himself without an opinion in a sitting.

If I’m right, that means that the PCAOB’s structure is likely to be invalidated as unconstitutional. At oral argument the Chief Justice asked no questions of counsel to the plaintiffs and was hostile to the defense of the statute....

3. McDonald v. City of Chicago:

[T]he only Justice not to write from [the February] sitting is Justice Alito....

I predict that Justice Alito will write the Court’s opinion in McDonald recognizing that the Second Amendment is incorporated [in the 14th Amendment and thus applicable to state and local government]....

4. Christian Legal Society v. Martinez:

Neither Justice Stevens nor Justice Ginsburg authored an opinion from [the April] sitting....

Though it is very difficult to tell, I think that the most likely outcome in these circumstances is that Justice Ginsburg will issue a majority opinion in favor of Hastings Law School on the relatively narrow basis that the plaintiffs stipulated that the school had a neutral “all comers” policy that did not discriminate against this group but instead provided that all groups must accept all students

We shall see. It's a big Supreme Court day tomorrow. The Court's Term ends, with the retirement of Justice Stevens, and the hearings on the Kagan nomination begin.

Tom Goldstein predicts that Obama will nominate Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court.

He'd already predicted it, and he still thinks so:

It seems clear to me that none of the three nominees—including even Diane Wood—will generate a knock-down, drag-out fight in the Senate. In effect, the White House preempted the prospect of an all-out war by not including the leading liberal prospects in its published short list of finalists. The Bush White House took a similar approach when it nominated the conservative Samuel Alito, but passed on then-Fourth Circuit Judge Michael Luttig, to whom Democrats had signaled their very strong objections....

More surprising, institutional Republicans have not been particularly vocal in their objections to the potential nomination of Diane Wood. Judge Wood’s abortion-related opinions would mean that she would receive only in the range of 55 to 60 votes. But confirmation would still be all but assured....

It is ... true that Judge Wood is the nominee whom progressives would prefer to see nominated, by an order of magnitude. While criticism from the left of General Kagan (who as the perceived front runner has received the most attention) and Judge Garland has been limited to a few, very vocal liberal commentators, it nonetheless exists.... So to the extent that Wood presents the potential downsides of some fight in the Senate and mobilizing conservatives in the election, she has the upside of appealing to and mobilizing core constituencies of the president....

On the ability of the three to persuade a conservative member of the Court such as Justice Kennedy, all have significant strengths as well.... Diane Wood is not only personally charming but has gone toe to toe with Judges Easterbrook and Posner and persuaded them on significant issues. Elena Kagan has significant demonstrated success in working with conservatives at Harvard Law School, which is an exceptionally challenging environment, and has parallels to the relationships at the Court. But she has never been a judge, and would as a consequence presumably take longer than the others to adapt to the new role.

I don't quite get it. Why won't Obama give liberals what they want? The strongest argument for Kagan over Wood seems to be age. Kagan's 49. Wood is 59.

Sotomayor!

It's Sotomayor!

ADDED: Tom Goldstein analyzes the political dynamics of the nomination. He says Obama will not need to "invest additional political capital" over confirmation.

... Republicans cannot afford to find themselves in the position of implicitly opposing Judge Sotomayor. To Hispanics, the nomination would be an absolutely historic landmark....

... Sotomayor has an extraordinarily compelling personal narrative. She is a first generation American, born of immigrant parents. She grew up in a housing project, losing her father as an adolescent, raised (with her brother) by her mother, who worked as a nurse. She got herself to Princeton, graduating as one of the top two people in her class, then went to Yale Law. Almost all of her career has been in public service–as a prosecutor, trial judge, and now appellate judge. She has almost no money to her name.

Goldstein thinks Republicans will (should?) wait until Obama's next nomination to stage a fight — the way the Democrats went easy on John Roberts and fought hard against Samuel Alito.

To the extent that there is opposition, it will fall into 4 categories, Goldstein says: 1. that she's not smart enough, 2. that she's "a liberal ideologue and 'judicial activist,'” and 3. that she's "unprincipled or dismissive of positions with which she disagrees," and 3. that she's "gruff and impersonable." Goldstein outlines the response to these 4 arguments.

Here's what I think conservatives should do: Accept that she will be confirmed, but use the occasion to sharpen the definition of conservative judicial values and to argue to the American people that these are the better values.