I'm Elizabeth Slattery and welcome to SCOTUS 101 where we break down what's happening at the Supreme Court, what the justices are up to, and other things related to our favorite branch of government.

I'd like to welcome my colleague John Michael Seibler. He's filling in for Tiffany while she's off preparing for her law school finals this week. Tiffany, good luck, particularly on Fed Courts and JM, welcome to SCOTUS 101. Oh, thank you. I'm so happy to be joining you up here, and Tiffany, good luck. This week, we're talking about the court's recent orders and oral arguments, and we'll interview law professor Oren Kerr. Before we dig into the court's orders list from this week, I have a request. We will be giving out honors and dishonors for the best and worst judicial opinions of the year in our final episode of 2017.

So if there are any cases you'd like to nominate, please send them our way with a brief description of why the opinion deserves recognition as either the best or the worst of 2017.

You can email us at SCOTUS 101 at Heritage.org or tweet

at us at SCOTUS 101. So the court announced some orders this week. There were no grants,

which was a little surprising since they have kind of a light load for the spring. But there were

a few interesting things in the orders. First up, the Supreme Court suspended

an attorney by the name James A. Robbins. Now, they apparently meant to suspend a lawyer by that

name from New York, who lost his client's will and then was disbarred from the New York Bar after

he forged signatures and made other false statements to cover up his mistake. But instead, the

court accidentally suspended James Robbins of California, who apparently

worked for the Supreme Court for seven years.

So quite a mistake to make.

Mark Sherman wrote an article for the Washington Post this week, all about this, and you can

check it out.

And he points out that this is the second time this year that

the court has mixed up lawyers in their attorney discipline orders. So we wonder what's going on there,

but I'm sure James A. Robbins of California has been reinstated to the Supreme Court bar.

Yes, and hopefully on good terms again, but his former employer.

So, Jam, there was an interesting dissent from denial of cert by Justice Thomas.

You want to tell us a little bit about that? Yes, so that was in Town of Vernon against United States.

And here, once again, Thomas dived into the original meaning of Congress's authority under the Commerce Clause, this time under the Indian Commerce Clause.

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