Is that, for want of a better expression, a "common occurrence"? That is, would it be something that's fixed the same way as say, accidentally putting the wrong info into a court document or forgetting a signature or something, or could someone be a jerk and make it take a long while to rectify?
This isn't too common an occurrence, but does happen on occasion. Basically, you had someone use common sense and just send the matter to Judge Scullin to save time and effort. A few years back, I did some work for a court system that only had two judges. By court rule, cases were assigned by a roll of a pair of dice. Odd number, went to Judge A, even number and it went to Judge B. One day, a case was filed against a defendant who had sued Judge B. Clerk, knowing this had happened and recognizing the conflict, assigned the case directly to Judge A. Court of Appeals reversed because the clerk did not have authority to make a specific assignment, so it was not properly assigned to a judge. Should have rolled the dice and sent the case based on the rule, and let the judges work out the impact of any issues.
Here are some of the possibilities in the Sentile case:
1. Chief Justice does not make the appointment to Scullin, so case starts over from the beginning on a new judge's docket.
2. The case still gets assigned to Judge Scullin, but starts over from the beginning because the parties don't agree to allow the Judge to consider what was already filed and presented on the issue.
3. Case gets assigned to Scullin and he decides to start it over from the beginning.
4. Case gets assigned to Scullin, and the parties agree that he can rule based on what was already presented.
In the real world, the last option (#4) would be the most likely outcome. Saves everyone time and money, and gets the case headed to the next step, the appeal, sooner rather than later. But, now that I consider that it's DC, it's the current administration, and it involves firearms, I'm thinking that #2 is the likely outcome. Chief Justice will make the appointment. AG's office will not consent to the prior information/evidence being admitted for Scullin's ruling,