This is the busy season at the U.S. Supreme Court: the frenzied weeks after the conclusion of oral arguments in April and the before the close of the term at the end of June. So you can’t blame the justices for needing to take a little musical interlude every now and again.

Earlier this week, the justices took a break from drafting decisions to enjoy the court’s spring musicale, a private concert for the justices and their guests in the East Conference Room of the courthouse. The Wall Street Journal’s Jess Bravin has the details of the event, which included Broadway singer Barbara Cook performing John Lennon’s “Imagine” — which Bravin noted is “strikingly at odds with court precedents granting privileges to religious institutions, enshrining property rights and limiting the reach of international law.” Imagine all the people sharing all the world, indeed!

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, organizer of the spring concert, also took part in another musical event in Chicago. The justice was on hand for the celebration of the centennial anniversaries of DePaul University’s Driehaus College of Business, College of Law and School of Music, which featured performances that examined the role of law in operatic compositions.

Ginsburg noted that in general, lawyers and judges “fare rather badly in operatic works.”

What is Angelina Jolie’s connection to the U.S. Supreme Court?

Earlier this week the actress revealed that she underwent a preventative double mastectomy after she tested positive for a gene that indicates an increased risk for breast and ovarian cancer. That gene is one of those at issue in the Supreme Court case Association of Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Inc. A decision in that case, which considers if human genes are patentable, is expected late next month.

USA Today’s Richard Wolf writes that it’s unclear how much – if at all – news reports sway the decision of the justices since the members of the court meet privately to discuss and vote on pending cases.  But it’s worth noting that justices generally vote on cases a few days after oral arguments, and the gene patent case was heard last month. Absent a late change of heart (and vote) by one of the justices, the case likely has already been decided, and the opinion and possible dissents and concurrences were already being drafted long before Jolie’s announcement.

The U.S. Supreme Court is more diverse than ever. But the same can’t be said for the group of attorneys who argued before the justices this term.

According to a report by the AP’s Mark Sherman, only one black attorney argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this term – taking up only 11 minutes of the 75 hours of oral arguments that the justices heard. Only four Hispanic attorneys made their case before the court.

Also, women made up only 17 percent of the lawyers appearing before the Supreme Court this year.

“In an era when three women, a Hispanic and an African-American sit on the court and white men constitute a bare majority of the nine justices, the court is more diverse than the lawyers who argue before it,” Sherman wrote. More here.

The most trusted judge in America does not sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. She presides over a television soundstage.

Television star Judge Judy ranked highest among judges in Reader’s Digest’s survey of the most trusted people in America, ranking 28th on the magazine’s top 100 List. She edged out the most trusted justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who came in 36th on the list.

The least trusted justice still made the top 100; Justice Clarence Thomas came in 88th in the poll.

HT: ABA Journal

There’s been something a little different about Justice Antonin G. Scalia recently. The folks in the Supreme Court’s press gallery have noticed this term that the usually bespectacled justice was appearing at oral arguments sans glasses.

Now, Scalia’s new look has been captured for posterity. The justice sat for a new official photo, and for the first time in recent history he is neither wearing nor holding glasses. (Photo: The Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States).

Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor  — or “Sonia from the Bronx,” as she likes to be called — said the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings on the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act will have an impact on gay Americans, regardless of how the court comes down.

The will be “a turning point for those whose lives will be changed, for better or for worse,” Sotomayor  said at an event Sunday in Cooper Union, a private college in Manhattan’s East Village, according to the Wall Street Journal. Decisions in those cases are expected just before the court wraps up its term at the end of June.

Sotomayor made it clear she wasn’t showing the court’s cards, though, adding: “just so you’re all clear, I’m not predicting anything.”

Supreme Court buffs who have long followed the drama and unlikely friendship between Justices Antonin G. Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg can take heart: the story is being put to music.

“There is now being written an opera called ‘Scalia-Ginsburg,’” Ginsburg said last week during an appearance at the spring meeting of the American Bar Association Section of International Law in Washington, according to a Federal News Service transcript from the event. (FNS is a sister company to Lawyers USA.)

The justices, who lie on opposite sides of the Court’s ideological spectrum, are close and have been known to travel, ring in the New Year, attend the opera together. Once the justices were even featured in a performance by the Washington National Opera. Soon, it’s their story that will be set to music.

“One of the principal arias is “Meet Giamano Nino,’” Ginsburg said.

He may not quite be the Funniest Justice, but the argument can be made that Justice Stephen G. Breyer is the most accident-prone member o f the U.S. Supreme Court.

Breyer broke his shoulder Friday in a fall off of his bicycle near the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington – his second serious biking accident in the last two years and his third overall.  He’s recovering from reverse shoulder replacement surgery at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and is expected to be released early this week, according to the Supreme Court’s Public Information Office.

In 2011, Breyer broke his collarbone while bicycling near his home in Cambridge, Mass. Back in 1993, Breyer interviewed with then-President Bill Clinton for a Supreme Court post while still recovering from broken ribs and a punctured lung suffered when he was hit by a car while bicycling in the Bay State. Clinton nominated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg instead, but Breyer got the nod from Clinton a year later.

Breyer has also suffered other unrelated misfortunes recently, including being robbed at machete-point in the Caribbean and having his Georgetown home burglarized in 2012.

Breyer is not the only justice to suffer accidental injuries. Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor suffered a broken ankle after taking a spill at an airport during her Senate confirmation process in 2009. And in 2011, DC Dicta spotted Sotomayor limping into the courtroom during oral arguments, propping her leg on a footrest behind the bench and occasionally wincing in pain. The court’s press office later confirmed to DC Dicta that the justice “was experiencing some knee/ligament discomfort,” although no cause was provided.

More recently, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fell at her home and suffered broken ribs last year. In 2009 Ginsburg suffered a bad reaction to medication and fell off her chair while aboard an airplane – a month after fainting in her chambers.

Happy birthday to Justice Elena Kagan.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s newest justice is also the youngest, turning 53 today.

During oral arguments Tuesday, Justice Antonin G. Scalia asked why “my choice of marrying whom I want” can’t be considered property.

“I think it’s more properly viewed as a liberty interest,” said Justice Department attorney Sarah E. Harrington. “It’s not a source of economic value in the sort of traditional sense.”

“A lot of people marry for money,” Scalia deadpanned, drawing laughs.

For a while there, it looked like there may be a contest between Justices Scalia and Stephen G. Breyer for the title of Funniest Justice of OT 2012. But in the end, Scalia broke away to easily win and remain undefeated since DC Dicta began keeping tally 6 years ago.

Here are the final standings of the term:

Justice Antonin G. Scalia: 50

Justice Stephen G. Breyer: 40

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.: 16

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy: 9

Justice Elena Kagan: 9

Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor: 7

Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.: 5

Justice Clarence Thomas: 1

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 1