They were all minor, but one was notable for being Justice Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court debut and for prompting a testy concurrence from Justice Clarence Thomas.
The decision included a widely admired concurrence from Justice Robert H. Jackson setting out a framework for considering clashes between presidential power and Congressional authority.
While lower-court judges have generally upheld that principle, the reed to which they have clung -- a concurrence by Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. in a Supreme Court case from 1972 known as Branzburg -- has been characterized as relatively thin in several recent decisions.
The pattern of zero-off-diagonal elements from the main-diagonal in a concurrence matrix is useful in the identification of the distance in a polygonal design.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing another dissent disguised as a concurrence, shares Breyer's concern that children be protected from influences that might turn them into damaged citizens.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in a concurrence in Padilla, said the majority's approach was a "dramatic departure from precedent".
(Some of the vote counts are judgment calls; an opinion labeled by its author as a concurrence may be counted as a dissent, for example, if it departs from the essential elements of the majority opinion).
Only one, a concurrence by Robert Grier, could be called short.
In a concurrence, Justice Stephen G. Breyer suggested additional limitations.
(Clarence Thomas, in a concurrence, said that he would have thrown the whole thing out).
