. >>> ian mill hauser writes about the supreme court, he said the 4-4 split is a sign of things to come this term. >> i don't think that this case is necessarily the best example of the court's dysfunction, because in this particular case, the plaintiffs were asking the justice to overrule a 40-year-old precedent, so that precedent remains in effect and we all know the law now, it's what the law has been for the last four decades. the problem is you've got so many other cases going down on birth control, on immigration, where the law is more unclear, and this is just an appetizer of what could come if we have a bunch of 4-4 decisions in these other cases, where you could have a great deal of confusion, you could have conflicting court orders, parties may not know what to do because the supreme court won't have ruled one way or another on it. how do you think the members of the supreme court feel about these splits? do they do things to try and avoid them? >> well, their side certainly in the birth control case that they're trying to make it work. they issued a very strange order yesterd