Supreme Court to consider free speech, lobster surveillance, and thousands of cases at long conference

Supreme Court justices will return to Washington on Monday for their first closed-door conference to discuss cases petitioned to them, a week before the start of the high court’s new term, which features several major cases.

The high court’s “long conference,” held the week before the new Supreme Court term, will feature thousands of petitions that have piled up during the three months since the last term ended with the final opinion day on June 30. The Supreme Court will likely decline to take up nearly all of the cases for argument, but some will be relisted for another conference for further discussion or accepted for oral arguments. The justices have already accepted 25 cases for oral argument for the upcoming term and are expected to add dozens more in the coming months, including from the long conference.