New era for Supreme Court: 3 women on bench

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court began a new era Monday with three women serving together for the first time, Elena Kagan taking her place at the end of the bench and quickly joining in the give-and-take.

In a scene that will repeat itself over the next few months, Kagan left the courtroom while the other justices remained to hear a case in which she will take no part.

Kagan has taken herself out of 24 pending cases, including the second of the two argued Monday, because of her work as the Obama administration's solicitor general prior to joining the court in August.

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Hundreds of appeals turned down
Opening its new term on the traditional first Monday in October, the court turned down hundreds of appeals, including one from the relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. They are seeking a proper burial for material taken from the World Trade Center site because it could contain the ashes of victims.

Dana Verkouteren  /  AP

This artist rendering shows the newest Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, right, during a hearing at the court in Washington, on Monday. Seated, from left are, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Chief Justices John Roberts, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel Alito and Kagan.

The justices also refused to hear several criminal appeals, including one by John and Timothy Rigas, founders of former telecommunications giant Adelphia Communications. They wanted the court to overturn their fraud convictions in connection with Adelphia's collapse in 2002.

The court also rejected an appeal by reputed Ku Klux Klansman James Ford Seale of his conviction for killing two black men in rural Mississippi in 1964 and another appeal by Georgia death row inmate Jamie Ryan Weis, who said he had no lawyer for two years.

Makeup of the new court
At the court, moments after Marshal Pamela Talkin banged her gavel and commanded the audience's attention, Chief Justice John Roberts announced the start of the new term with little fanfare.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, beginning her second year on the court, sat at the opposite end of the bench from Kagan, while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who joined in 1993, sat midway between Kagan and Roberts, who occupies the center chair.

John Paul Stevens' retirement after 34 years led to Kagan's appointment.

The new court has four New Yorkers, Antonin Scalia and the three women. All nine justices got their law degrees from Ivy League schools, and all but Kagan previously served as federal appeals court judges.

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For the first time ever, there are no Protestants among the justices — six Catholics and three Jews.

The substitution of the liberal-leaning Kagan for the like-minded Stevens is not expected to make a difference in the ideologically tinged cases in which four conservatives face off against four liberals with Justice Anthony Kennedy the decisive vote. Kennedy sides more often with the conservatives.

Kagan speaks up during first case of term
But none of that matters when the court hears cases like the first one of its new term, a bankruptcy dispute with no evident ideological issue.

The justices were trying to figure out whether someone in bankruptcy who owned a car outright could still shield some income from creditors by claiming an allowance for a car payment. Like many seemingly easy issues that come to the court, this one had divided federal appeals courts.

At one point, Kagan wondered whether someone with a car that had 200,000 miles on it "and was going to break down in the next five years" could plausibly claim the allowance.

No, said Deanne Maynard, the lawyer for the credit card company that is trying to recoup some of the nearly $33,000 it is owed by Jason Ransom. Ransom's decision to claim a $471 monthly allowance for car payments though he owes no money on his 2004 Toyota Camry landed the case before the Supreme Court.

Kagan may have felt somewhat more comfortable than usual on a justice's first day in court because two of the lawyers in the case, Maynard and Justice Department lawyer Nicole Saharsky, worked for her when she was at the Justice Department.

The justices did not appear to lean one way or the other in the argument. Roberts suggested that some of the arguments on both sides would lead to absurd results.

Free speech cases loom large
Free speech cases top the U.S. Supreme Court's docket as it begins a new term.

The court will look at provocative anti-gay protests at military funerals and a California law banning the sale of violent video games to children. These cases worry free speech advocates, who fear the court could limit First Amendment freedoms. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees such basic rights as freedom of speech, religion and assembly.

The funeral protest lawsuit, over signs praising American war deaths, "is one of those cases that tests our commitment to the First Amendment," said Steven Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Another case involves a different aspect of the First Amendment, the government's relationship to religion. The justices will decide whether Arizona's income tax credit scholarship program, in essence, directs state money to religious schools in violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.

Under Chief Justice John Roberts, marking his fifth anniversary on the court, and with the replacement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor by Justice Samuel Alito, the court has been more sympathetic to arguments that blur the line between government and religion, as long as one religion is not favored over another.