Sometimes the Supreme Court Sticks to the Law

Big-agenda, partisan issues—the census, reapportionment and gerrymandering, the Second Amendment, abortion—are bearing down on the Supreme Court like a ship with black sails. On Monday, the Court granted certiorari in four new criminal-justice cases that, by and large, lack a strong partisan valence. Whether Lee Boyd Malvo, one of the most infamous multiple murderers in American history, must receive a new sentencing hearing because he was a juvenile at the time he participated in the Beltway sniper attacks that left 10 people dead in 2002.