A bunch of Dimaya GVRs and a hundreds of criminal case cert denials in first SCOTUS order list of October Term 2018

As noted in this post a few weeks ago, law professor Rory Little had this great lengthy post at SCOTUSblog previewing the criminal side of the Supreme Court's docket under the heading "Criminal cases in the October 2018 term: A law professor’s dream."  But as the Court's term officially gets started today, this first SCOTUS order list may seem a bit like a criminal defense lawyer's nightmare because of the extraordinary number of criminal cases in which cert is denied.  Of course, every first order list to start every new Term includes a huge number of denials of cert in all the criminal cases that stack up over the summer break.  But it still is a bit startling to scroll through page after page after page after page of what all appear to be criminal cases in which cert has been denied this morning.

That all said, the SCOTUS order list does include a bunch of GVRs based on the vagueness ruling in Sessions v. Dimaya, most of which appear to involve criminal cases.  I have not been able to follow all the Dimaya fall-out as closely as some true experts, but I suspect that these GVRs are noteworthy not only because they come amidst a sea of cert denials.  Also, there might well be some significant criminal case relists hiding in the certiorari carnage that today's order list reflects.  So criminal justice fans and sentencing fans may still be able to find a SCOTUS silver lining in today's order list.  And, of course, on so many fronts, SCOTUS activity is just getting heated up.