'Basically never happens': Legal expert singles out Alito slight in overnight Trump ruling

[Ms. Toad]

5. This is not an ordinary case.

Waiting for a dissent would, essentially, have been the same thing as denying the ACLU's emergency stay - Alito could just have stalled until another shipment went out. It would be sort of like granting a stay of execution at 11:59 on the day someone was to be executed - but waiting to release the opinion until the dissenting justices wrote their dissent.

So pretty much everything about it was unusual, but given all of the unusual steps to get to this point, releasing it before the dissent is the least unusual step.