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The Courts United States

Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments Remotely (npr.org) 94

The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments remotely for the next two weeks, and for the first time in history, the audio will be available, live, to the public. From a report: The arguments include high-profile cases about birth control access, religious freedom, the Electoral College and President Trump's financial records. They are scheduled to take place Monday through Wednesday on the weeks of May 4 and May 11, beginning at 10 a.m. ET each day. You can listen live to all of the cases here (Monday's arguments have concluded). For each case, both sides will have the same amount of time. Each side will have two minutes of uninterrupted argument at the beginning. After that, each justice has been allotted two minutes for questioning, with more questions permitted if there is time left at the end of the first round. Each side has a total of 30 minutes.
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Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments Remotely

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  • Gerontocracy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Frank Burly ( 4247955 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2020 @11:01AM (#60024356)

    The Judicial branch (and Supreme Court generally) reliy on their prestige more than the other two branches of government. They cannot initiate investigations, cannot offer advice, and cannot enforce their judgments. So they generally treat the institution of the courts as if it were what they want it to be: non-partisan, above the fray, staid, and a bit like a church, with an unbroken line of succession going back to John Marshall.

    I believe that they still have spittoons by their seats. So allowing an attorney to simultaneously make his (or her) case to both the Justices and the general public is something extraordinary. What if one of them has a slogan that rhymes, but demands an outcome contrary to law (ie "If the glove does not fit, you must acquit")? What if an attorney calls out a justice on some perceived partisan bias?

    Such in-chambers challenges to the legitimacy of the Court would pull it down into they fray (where it may belong, see Bush v. Gore and Shelby County). Which means they will stop doing it as soon as it is safe. However, www.oyez.org has an audio archive of the past several decades worth of Supreme Court arguments, and the recordings of each day's arguments are posted quickly, but not in real time.

    Courts move so slowly that I doubt we will have the spectacle of a locked-down Court hearing the case of some peon who lost government benefits because they didn't want to risk their lives to cut people's hair. But, I will offer my betters a bit of advice: make sure the Court is reminded of the precautions they and the other branches of government were taking while your clients were being forced to worth closely with the public.

    • I’m pretty sick and tired of the gerontological arguments they have been making lately. It’s never too late to start practicing that old school separation of church and state non-partisanship that never really caught on.
      • Please point that phrase out in the Constitution. "Separation of church and state" was meant to mean the state could not impose on the church (look up the full text the author was using that phrase in). Kind of like what the State is doing today--unless you think it's safer to fight over toilet paper in Walmart than to stay 15+' apart in a large sanctuary...
        • A unidirectional separation? Separation means separate, not that the state can pretend to be neutral while a religious group runs to envelop it and seek control indirectly over others. Such as article 6 that prohibits a religious test to hold office (despite this being on the books in backwaters and and also still a de facto requirement). Further, stupid decisions like Zorac vs. Clauson [wikipedia.org] need to be overturned, not roe vs wade which will cement America as the backwards religious laughing stock of the weste
        • It was intended as a mutual protection. The Constitution forbids religious tests for Federal office and the First Amendment to the Constitution forbids the creation of a Federal Church along with protecting free exercise.

          But the State can impose plenty on a Church if that imposition is "narrowly tailored" to achieving a compelling government purpose and the least restrictive means are used. (And the 1st now applies against the states as well.)

          I don't know whether the various orders will meet the requirement

  • The time limit is a little scary, because a complicated enough case may run out of time. "At least I finished on time!" is an invalid argument. We need somebody there allocating not necessarily extra time to both sides, but noticing when the winning side is in time trouble and kicking the case forward to a better day.

    When I was telecommuting into SCotUS on tech issues, Sonia was responsible for declaring such situations. That may be Brett now as the most recently appointed. Still, somebody needs to be watch

  • It's also on CourtTV. I don't watch but I saw it on zqap2it.

    CourtTV is having a dearth of cases lately, I noticed once they were rerunning OJ.

  • First Calm did sleep stories, Then Audible did sleep stories. Now a government is doing it.
  • For those who don't want to use the NPR links in the OP, you can listen live from a link on the C-SPAN page https://www.c-span.org/supreme... [c-span.org] or review the archives at https://www.supremecourt.gov/ [supremecourt.gov]
  • This is the fourth article I've seen on the subject. Each one leads to a useless web link, always a different article instead of the actual place where the audio can be heard. In this case there is a temporary link at the NPR site which no longer works.

    WHERE CAN THE AUDIO BE HEARD!

    If it's not too much trouble.

  • He has made all of the legally required FEC records public, and in many ways, they show a lot more than tax returns since they deal with wealth instead of just income for a given year.

  • They forget that politics is not only about speeches and debates but about actions! How is it possible we see none of the last during such an awful crisis?! Is it a result of bad education system when I learn only to listen and do my homework [domyhomework4me.onl] in a written form without any practical purpose?

Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein

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