Recapping (incompletely) the SCOTUS argument week that was … and looking ahead

I flagged in this post at the start of this week that the Supreme Court had a quartet of scheduled oral arguments on criminal issues.  Based on press reports, it seems that defendants/individuals had a pretty good week in court taking on the arguments from  prosecutors/state actors.  But, of course, we cannot know for sure who is truly victorious until we get opinions in a few months.  Here are links to various press stories suggesting where the Court seemed to be leaning in these cases:

Snyder v. US: “Supreme Court Poised to Cut Back Scope of Anti-Corruption Law“

Chiaverini v. City of Napoleon, Ohio: “Justices Wary Of Strict Limit On Malicious Prosecution Cases“

Fischer v. US: “Supreme Court gives skeptical eye to key statute used to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters“

Thornell v. Jones: “High Court Weighs New Sentence for Arizona Death Row Inmate“

Next week’s six scheduled Supreme Court arguments are not exclusively crminal matters, but there are two big crime-related cases in the bunch.  On Monday, the Court takes up Eighth Amendment issues in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson and Presidential immunity issues in Trump v. United States.  I am inclined to guess that the Justices will have some more affinity for arguments from prosecutors/state actor in these cases as compared to those cases heard this past week.  But we shall see.