Justice Antonin Scalia’s death was a boon for the goons in the Obama administration who use arbitrary rules to shake down the nation’s industries and lower governments. On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear Apple’s appeal to the charge from the Justice Department and 33 state attorneys that accused the company of fixing the price of e-books. As it stands now, Apple is on the hook to pay $400 million to e-book readers and $50 million to the government. Not a bad haul for a government shakedown.

This is yet another case that the high court has declined to hear, possibly because the bench is evenly split along partisan lines, thanks to the death of one of its most conservative justices. For instance, Chief Justice John Roberts unilaterally rejected a plea last week from a consortium of more than 20 states that tried to stop the implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s air pollution rules, rules the Supreme Court ruled were illegal just last year.

“Justice Scalia’s death has propelled a wave of companies to fold and pre-emptively settle with the trial bar, including Dow Chemical’s $835 million disposition of an antitrust class action,” wrote The Wall Street Journal. The dispiriting Apple denouement is another reminder of how important his replacement on the High Court will be.“

Without a ninth justice, the Supreme Court is surely handicapped. The large legal questions this nation faces lie unanswered. The cost may be high for the present, but the pick for the ninth justice must be unhurried and constitutional.