WASHINGTON – It's the time of the year when Supreme Court justices can get testy. They might have to find a new way to show it.
The court's most fought-over decisions in its most consequential cases often come in June, with dueling majority and dissenting opinions.
But when a justice is truly steamed to be on a decision's losing side, the strongest form of protest is reading a summary of the dissent aloud in court.
Dissenting justices exercise what a pair of scholars call the “nuclear option” just a handful of times a year, but when they do, they signal that behind the scenes, there's frustration and even anger.