
Supreme Court of the United States to Live Stream Oral Arguments - uptown
https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/press/pressreleases/pr_04-30-20
======
rotskoff
I follow SCOTUS news pretty closely; the discussions below are a bit
misguided. Audio transcripts of oral arguments are already widely available---
you can even subscribe to the Oyez podcast feed and find them in your podcast
queue a few days after the court hears the case. The new thing here is "live",
so as a practical matter, it probably doesn't constitute a huge change. If
there were an incentive for the justices to produce "sound bites", it would
already exist. C-SPAN coverage will probably increase the visibility a little,
but, having listened to many of the arguments this term, I'd say that most
cases are too technical to be of much general interest.

A second point: oral arguments are performative. The cases are argued via
written briefs and oral arguments provide a venue for the justices to question
the petitioners about their arguments and air their responses to what the
believe the other justices are thinking. Streaming the arguments, as opposed
to making available courtroom audio after the fact, doesn't seem to change the
dynamic much.

Many court watchers have taken this as an optimistic sign that perhaps the
court will allow video. However, this is one thing that the court has strongly
resisted. Some of the justices are known to prize their relatively low public
profile and there's been speculation that maintaining that pseudo-anonymity is
perhaps a reason for the hesitance.

~~~
leemailll
I read and listen to Oyez a lot. From my persona experience, laymen might not
get the things they are talking when they cite previous cases, some legal
words might not easy to catch, and the judges most likely is questioning the
briefs which won’t be available. Live audio might open interests to public
when working from home, but nothing beats oyez’s synced transcript with audio.
It will be interesting to listen to whether judges will change their way to
question cases. Or more interestingly, when Thomas will say something

~~~
slapshot
He asked questions on the first audio call, linked above.

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JumpCrisscross
I'm hesitant about this. Separating the drama of a case from the logic of the
opinion helps keep justices from becoming politicians. We don't want justices
incentivised to work sound bites into their courtroom discourse.

On the other hand, most reporting on SCOTUS rulings is terrible. It focusses
on the implications of the ruling and almost to zero degree on its legal
logic. That makes the court feel like a political body.

~~~
SkyBelow
>That makes the court feel like a political body.

Is it not? From the method that I've seen legal logic applied, it feels
heavily political. What counts as a loophole that will be struck down and what
counts as a loophole that will be allowed often doesn't have any core logical
justification that isn't political. There are a bunch of rules, but even more
exceptions. There is a bunch of consistency, but not on the level that you
find in actual logic, math, or computational science (like with Turing
machines). This has long led me to view it like a bunch of political entities
playing pretend at being logical. Pretty decent pretend, better than most
other systems, but when compared to truly logical systems, still clearly
pretend.

You can also see this at macro scale application of the law. For example look
at how the law is applied when you break it down by class, race, and sex. It
clearly is done so unfairly, which leads on to conclude that either the
unfairness is logical, or that the system isn't logical at the core.

Jury nullification is another example where it breaks down, as to say it
doesn't exist when the things that logically give rise to it must exist is a
contradiction.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _it feels heavily political_

SCOTUS is not apolitical. (No human institution is.) That doesn't make it a
political body.

I've found helpful to read the official opinion of decisions I disagree with.
Start to finish, including the dissent. With respect to modern rulings, I have
yet to walk away finding the arguments abysmal. In almost every case, I
disagree with the law, not the court.

When I disagree, it's because the law--as you say--had holes. The court fills
these in, by necessity. On this, it's fair to find disagreement. But the
degree to which these holes are filled is usually impressively restrained.
There are very few modern case where, given the facts and circumstances of the
case or controversy, and within the context of the surrounding law, I found
the interpolation obscene.

> _not on the level that you find in actual logic, math, or computational
> science_

Courts aren't deterministic. That doesn't make them a political body.

It's an open debate as to whether we _want_ the law to parse like code. I
don't. As long as lawmaking is under human control, the law is comprehensible
to humans and humans remain free agents, the law--and thus courts--will have a
degree of unpredictability to them.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
> I've found helpful to read the official opinion of opinions I disagree with.
> Start to finish, including the dissent. With respect to modern rulings, I
> have yet to walk away finding the arguments abysmal. In almost every case, I
> disagree with the law, not the court.

My impressions from the podcasts of actual law professors and lawyers is that
there are various interpretations of the law that trend towards liberal or
conservative values, and the strategic dressing of how the law is read is
itself a political strategy to legitimize a political reasoning as an
apolitical law analysis.

For example, the choice of a judge to read only the text and law as it is
written (textualism) without caring about the general context as to why it
exists or the effects of the law in modern day can often be used to ignore the
actual injustice occurring as a result of a law that doesn't actually produce
just outcomes even when the supposed intention is such. It's arguably
pedantry.

But when the same purely text-based reading is applied for progressive
arguments, as in the hearings for sex-based discrimination, the conservative
justices have abruptly shifted their questions to be concerned about the
societal effects (bathrooms) or the original intention of the law
(originalism). This sort of flip-flopping of evaluation strategies is often
used as a basis of argument that while there are multiple reading frameworks
of law, the actual frameworks used are often for political/personal purposes
and judges are proposed based off their conservative or liberal bent in
analysis.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
As a scientist, this is how scientists also behave when there is disagreement.
Humans will be human.

As long as courts remain within reasonable bounds of "filling in the holes",
that is good enough. And we can think about improving the process.

~~~
pmiller2
We are lucky that fundamental disagreements, for the most part, don’t happen
in pure mathematics.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
Yes. But I think this is because, any area of study in which such
disagreements can happen are, are by definition excluded from pure
mathematics.

What is surprising is that what remains to be studied is vast and beautiful
and highly effective when borrowed by other disciplines.

~~~
pmiller2
I don't particularly think it's surprising that results from the study of
structure end up applying to other disciplines. The wonder of the
"unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" is really that we've managed to
find those bits that line up the best between mathematics and other fields.

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dantheman
I think live streaming is terrible for supreme court. Especially since the
oral arguments are the least important part. It's good for them just to
release everything at the end of year in June.

If anything this will encourage lawyers and justices to get in interesting
tidbits so it can be part of the shit 24 hour news cycle...

I can see no benefit coming from this.

~~~
adambetsoup
Oral arguments are pretty important. The questions the judges ask (minus
Thomas because he never speaks) shed a light on how they case will be judged.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Yes, but you seemed to hit on an important point - the questions inform how
the case will be judged. The questions themselves, not the answers.

Generally speaking, it seems that the outcome of a case is pretty much decided
before oral arguments are even presented. They seem to be treated as an
opportunity for the Justices to fill in any unanswered questions and check
their assumptions.

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jcranmer
It's also worth noting that the format of oral arguments has changed for this
period. Instead of a free-for-all questioning section, each justice will have
a chance for N minutes to question the counsel (without interruption by other
justices), proceeding in order of seniority. I can't say I'm a fan of this
change.

~~~
Klathmon
So I'll preface this by saying I've never heard supreme court oral arguments
before, so i don't know how they "normally" work, but yesterday I listened in
on the first streamed oral arguments, and this change stuck out to me too.

Several times the counsel was kind of interrupted to move the questions on to
the next justice in line, and the rate at which they moved through them seemed
extremely fast compared to what I expected.

This is the highest court in the country, adding what feel like artificial
time restrictions into the ability for the counsel to properly explain their
reasoning and points seems like a really bad idea. (obviously within reason,
you shouldn't have a lawyer that can talk for 20 hours to delay a case, but it
seemed like during the "United States Patent and Trademark Office v.
Booking.com B.V." part they were moving from justice to justice in what felt
like under a minute or 2, cutting the counsel off every time.)

Again, I'm far from an expert here, so can any actual experts (or people with
more knowledge of this world) offer some clarity on if this is "normal", and
perhaps why it's like this?

~~~
TheCoelacanth
They get to argue their case extensively in written form. The oral arguments
are really for the justices to get to ask questions.

Even before this change, there were very tight time limits on lawyers for oral
arguments.

There are also far, far more cases asking to be heard by the Supreme Court
than they can actually hear, so they need to keep the time limits short.

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vorpalhex
Most Supreme Court cases can be observed, which is part of how we hear about
them. In this day and age, it just so happens that observing them can now be
opened up to everyone.

And yeah, like any new thing I expect there to be a few missteps at first but
this is ultimately a good thing if it convinces Americans to be more aware and
involved with Supreme Court picks going forward.

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JMTQp8lwXL
Many of the comments suggest there's a problem with Supreme Court live
streaming due to soundbyte media coverage. If you take a step back, the
problem isn't the Supreme Court, but the regulation of media. From 1949-1987,
the FCC's Fairness Doctrine [0] assured broadcasters present issues in a
balanced, equitable manner. Instead of holding back the oral arguments, we
ought to consider how we discuss topics presented to SCOTUS in a fair and
equitable manner.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine)

~~~
wl
The already dubious legal rationale for the fairness doctrine disappeared with
cable and satellite television. The internet danced on the rationale's grave.
The limited broadcast spectrum that is theoretically regulated to benefit the
public rather than licensees no longer meaningfully limits the diversity of
views and the ability to propagate them in audio/visual media.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
A sizable portion of the Boomer generation gets the majority of their news
from cable television. The generation has outsized influence on policies
enacted and election results due to their presence in Congress and
proportionate share of the electorate. The fairness doctrine, if it still
existed, would positively impact the functioning of our democracy.

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tzs
For those who want to watch on their TV but don't have cable or a streaming
service that includes C-SPAN, it's also on Court TV's broadcast network [1]. I
stumbled across it yesterday on channel 13.2 in the Seattle region. (It looks
like Court TV also does a free live stream of the channel on their website). I
don't know if they cover the whole session or not, as I only watched for a
bit.

[1] [https://www.courttv.com/where-to-watch/](https://www.courttv.com/where-
to-watch/)

~~~
James_Henry
Or you could just watch it on C-SPAN:
[https://www.c-span.org/video/?471619-1/supreme-court-oral-
ar...](https://www.c-span.org/video/?471619-1/supreme-court-oral-argument-
usaid-v-alliance-open-society-international-inc&live)

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jakeogh
My fav (Heller 2008):

Justice Antonin Scalia reads Heller(2008)[1] for the majority:
[https://s3.amazonaws.com/oyez.case-
media.ogg/case_data/2007/...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/oyez.case-
media.ogg/case_data/2007/07-290/20080626o_07-290.ogg)

[1]
[https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/07-290](https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/07-290)

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iandanforth
For context this is a _major_ about-face for the court. They have had the
option to do this for decades now and have explicitly refused.

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linuxftw
More wasteful spending for no real benefit to taxpayers.

