Emergency docket
The emergency docket, more colloquially known as the shadow docket, is the increasingly important process at the United States Supreme Court whereby emergency applications, often citing a risk of irreparable harm to the applicant, are decided by the Court without oral argument or extensive briefing. Often the deadlines set for replying to such an application are short and accelerated, and typically the decisions rendered are without full opinions.
The term was coined by University of Chicago law professor William Baude in 2015. Subsequently, University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck wrote a book entitled The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court uses stealth rulings to amass power and undermine the republic.[1]
Justice Alito has criticized the term for wrongly portraying the Supreme Court as "sneaky", "sinister, or "dangerous".[1]
