Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety is an unexpectedly significant case. I thought this was going to be another unanimous religious liberty case like Holt v. Hobbs or Tanzin v. Tanvir, where the conservatives and liberals unite to rule for a non-Christian plaintiff. (Ramirez v. Collier was 8-1, with only Thomas in dissent.) My prediction about Landor was very wrong. The final vote was 6-3. Justice Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion for the six conservatives, ruling against the Rastafarian whose dreads were cut off. Justice Jackson wrote the dissent for the three liberals, finding that RLUIPA permits monetary damages against the prison guards.
As I read through opinion, and thought about the assignments so far, I speculated that something changed. I think Justice Jackson may have been assigned the majority opinion, with Justice Gorsuch in dissent, and the vote flipped at some point after the transgender sports cases were argued. Here is my evidence.
First, in the November sitting, nine cases were argued. Justice Gorsuch had two majority opinions (Landor and Rico), while Justice Jackson had none. Justice Barrett had two related cases (Fernandez and Rutherford), while Justice Kavanaugh had none. I can see the Chief Justice giving Justice Jackson the majority opinion to signal how the Court is unified on a religious liberty case. Moreover, Justice Gorsuch has seven majority opinions for the term, more than anyone else.
