Holy cow, Alito's out of the pool!!
The blog of the Legal Times and the New York Times report that Justice Alito has opted out of the cert. pool. That's the way that petitions for certiorari are deliberated on. The law clerks for the justices in the pool divide the petitions, read only those assigned to them and write a memo with a recommendation. So each cert petition gets a single memo from the pool. The justices often (although not always) make determinations based on that single memo. Justice Stevens was the only justice not in the pool. His clerks went through all of the petitions and offered their own memos to him.
So what does this mean? Well, some efficiency may be lost, and it could translate into a more shallow evaluation of cert petitions by those clerks not in the pool. They have a lot more to read and consider. At the same time, this may provide an important check on the homogeneizing trend of the cert pool.
It also might signal something important about a transition, as we look to a new administration. Although a Republican appointee (Nixon appointed him to the 7th circuit in 1970 and Ford appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1975) Justice Stevens may be, at least on some issues, the most liberal justice on the court. He also took his position as the only justice not in the cert pool very seriously. That Alito has opted out may relate to what Justice Stevens' colleauges are ensuring will remain after he is no longer on the court, regardless of who might replace him.
Of course, he might not be gearing up to retire. He's 88 now, but he won't be the oldest justice to serve on the court until early 2011. And he won't be the longest-serving justice in the history of the court until mid-2012.