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The American flag flies at half-mast outside the Supreme Court to honor the death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. | AP Photo SCOTUS splits 6-2 on first cases since Scalia's death

The Supreme Court split, 6-2, on Tuesday in the first cases decided since the death last month of Justice Antonin Scalia.

In both cases, the court's four conservative justices voted together and picked up the votes of two of the Democratic-appointed justices, while the other two Democratic appointees dissented.

In the first case, the court read a federal mandatory-minimum statute broadly, concluding that its requirement of a 10-year prison sentence for certain defendants applied to those with a previous conviction for a wide variety of sex crimes, not just those involving minors.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion, which drew a colorful and unusually contemporary dissent written by Justice Elena Kagan and joined by Justice Stephen Breyer.

"Imagine a friend told you that she hoped to meet 'an actor, director, or producer involved with the new Star Wars movie.' You would know immediately that she wanted to meet an actor from the Star Wars cast — not an actor in, for example, the latest Zoolander," Kagan wrote, arguing that the wording of the statute was parallel.

In the second case, the court ruled that federal law overrules a Vermont statute that requires insurance companies to report health-claims data to the state.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, which Justice Clarence Thomas joined with some reservations. Sotomayor and Kagan dissented.

While a fair amount of consensus was on display Tuesday, the decisions probably don't signal anything about whether Scalia's death will cause the court to deadlock in close cases. The court can easily hold those cases back for some time while it considers whether to allow the 4-4 split to affirm the ruling below or whether to order reargument in the fall. The justices may make that decision with an eye to whether the standoff over a potential replacement for Scalia looks likely to break by then.