WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

The Supreme Court abhors even numbers. But that’s just what the court will have to deal with after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Here are some questions and answers about the prospects of filling the vacancy left by the death of its conservative icon:

Q: What happens when President Barack Obama makes a nomination?

Any nominee would first face the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would hold confirmation hearings and then vote on whether to send the selection to the full Senate. An Obama nominee would have a hard time even getting a favorable vote to get out of the committee, where Republicans hold an 11-9 edge.

Q: What if the nominee did emerge from the committee?

The decision then rests with the full Senate, where Republicans are in the majority 54-46 and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wasted no time on Saturday making clear that “this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

Q. What happens to cases in which Scalia cast a vote or drafted an opinion, but no decision has been publicly announced?

It may sound harsh, but Scalia’s votes and draft opinions in pending cases no longer matter. Veteran Supreme Court lawyer Roy Englert says that “the vote of a deceased justice does not count.” Q. What happens if there is a tie? The justices have two options. They can vote to hear the case a second time when a new colleague joins them or they can hand down a one-sentence opinion that upholds the result reached in the lower court without setting a nationwide rule.