The term, as the Justices call it, begins on the first Monday in October, and through the fall they usually hear a series of low-profile cases.
The presiding judge, Mr Justice Tomlinson, called it a "farce".Had the parties agreed to mediation it would have taken probably a day and cost just a few thousand pounds.
Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, however, called the unusual arrangement depicted by the government as "passing strange," while Justice Antonin Scalia called it "weird".
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a former justice minister, called it "effrontery" that is "not in keeping with the sense and purpose of our rule of law".
CAAFlog, the leading military justice blog, called it "the death knell" for the current system, at least for sexual assault cases.
But the effects of less formal politicking — news coverage, rallies, protests, forums and other "noise," as Justice Thomas called it — are less clear.
"Because of its many fictional techniques," Ralph Ellison said of "Black Boy," Wright "could with justice have called it a 'nonfiction' novel".
In 1873 Victorian chief justice George Higinbotham called it "a base, contemptible distinction" which gave a man nothing more than "a handle to his name".
Chancellor Angela Merkel accused Pegida of "agitation and defamation"; Heiko Maas, the justice minister, called it a "disgrace for Germany".But the CSU, a centre-right party in Bavaria that governs with Mrs Merkel, was more nuanced.
Cemil Cicek, the justice minister, called it "unacceptable" and reminded the generals that they were constitutionally bound to take their orders from the prime minister, not vice versa.It is not just the army's taste for politics that is worrying.
