With the Supreme Court’s reputation taking a beating lately, you’d think justices might want an easy win for transparency. You’d be wrong.
So what’s the logic in permitting the public to hear arguments while they’re happening but not the results of those arguments when the justices explain them?
Its decision to keep the audio confined serves as a form of information control over the people bound by the decisions being announced. As is often the case with the court’s workings, we’re left to speculate. We know it’s not a logistical problem, because the court has demonstrated that it can regularly livestream arguments — which it wasn't doing pre-pandemic. And these announcements are being made in open court, so the justices’ words aren’t a complete secret.
Maybe the issue of opinion announcement audio seems like a small thing to some people. The opinions themselves are public; these are merely the justices’ words, and not necessarily the exact words of the opinions at that. There’s some measure of truth there, but, ultimately, it’s belied by the court’s decision to keep those words cooped up.
And it’s worth emphasizing that this isn’t about broadcasting the court’s private conferences or anything of the sort. This is about making public, in a humbly modern way, a purportedly public event. It's about sharing the justices’ chosen words with the millions of people who are bound by them. If people choose not to tune in, then that’s their choice. It shouldn’t be the court’s.Jordan Rubin is a blog writer for MSNBC focused on legal analysis.
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