This year marks the first anniversary of a Supreme Court fantasy league that a recent law school graduate from Virginia is running online. Participants try to accurately guess all nine justices' votes, collecting badges and achievements for their performance.
FantasySCOTUS by Josh Blackman (pictured) has 5,000 players - some of them, he says, are pretty big names in legal circles. In it, participants pick how they think a justice will handle a particular upcoming case: Affirm the lower court's decision; reverse the lower court's decision, or recuse himself or herself from the case.
Overall winners get the Golden Gavel and a "Chief Justice Badge." Other achievements include constitutional and criminal law expertise, and badges for being an expert on a specific justice. The lowest performers get the Borked badge, a reference to Robert Bork, whose nomination to the high court was infamously rejected in 1987.
The institution hosting the fantasy challenge also has prepared lesson plans involving Schwarzenegger vs. Entertainment Merchants Association, the case regarding a California statute restricting violent video game sales, which comes up for oral arguments on Nov. 2.
Mason Grad's Fantasy Supreme Court League More Than A Game [Fairfax County Times via Game Politics. Image by Blackman, via Fairfax County Times.]