Fantasy SCOTUS team profile: Merlach
We will be profiling some of the teams participating in this term’s FantasySCOTUS. This week, we kick it off at the very top – the predictor who is wearing the belt (if we gave out WWE-style belts).
TEAM: Merlach
PREDICTOR: Jacob Berlove is a three-time consecutive FantasySCOTUS champion, which is some darn serious cred in the Supreme Court prediction world.
WHY PARTICIPATE IN FANTASY SCOTUS: “As someone long interested in Supreme Court cases, it was very frustrating to be unable to do anything substantial in relation to this interest, given that I will never serve on the Supreme Court. I had long felt that I might have a pretty good understanding and feel for the Justices’ thought processes and decided to set out to test just how much I did.”
POWER MOVE: “One of the biggest things to consider is whether a Justice is playing devil’s advocate with a given comment. I can’t believe I fell for Justice Kennedy’s fake-out in Williams v. Illinois, for example.”
BEST RECOMMENDED SOURCE: “SCOTUSBlog. Great case pages and a really good knack for getting down to what the essence of a case is. “
ANYONE WITH A TARGET ON THEIR BACK? “Any big-wig lawyers I manage to beat.”
ASSESSMENT OF THIS TERM’S CALENDAR: “So far, I am underwhelmed by this year’s stack of cases…, I am disappointed by several cert denials, including those on acquitted conduct and on South Carolina’s continued stacking of the deck against defendants by refusing to let them present evidence that could be crucial to their case. (The silver lining will be if the Court is just waiting ‘till a majority is willing to come and rule on those cases correctly – witness McMillan and Harris’s overrulling in Alleyene).”
Do you have a team in this year’s FantasySCOTUS? Submit a team profile including some information about your team to legal.current@thomsonreuters.com
