U.S. Supreme Court

www.supremecourtus.gov

Overview 

This must be said at the outset: Chances are good that you won't cover the Supreme Court very much. Most regional reporters cover Congress and the agencies much more. 

That's a shame, because court decisions have enormous impact on society, frequently much more than some bill being introduced by your local member of Congress. Additionally, covering the court is an intellectual endeavor; the same can't be said of covering the latest twists and turns of a Washington scandal, as you will soon come to know.

Yet, the Supreme Court, a.k.a. the high court or simply the Court, remains the least covered of all Washington institutions. Partly this is because the wires - AP and Reuters - provide excellent spot coverage. Partly it's because editors back home don't understand how the court works.

Regional reporters get involved typically when a particular case bubbles up from their hometowns, or when their state attorneys general or hometown lawyers are involved in a case, or when one of the affected parties is from their coverage area.

The court receives more than 10,000 petitions a year, but hears about 80 to 90 a term. There are nine justices. The chief justice at the time of this writing is John D. Roberts Jr. There is one woman justice at present, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Location

Supreme Court Procedures

Four of the nine justices must vote to hear a case. The petition for the court to hear the case is called a writ of certiorari, cert for short. The decisions on which cases to accept occur before each October-June term begins and throughout the term, typically on Fridays. The list of accepted and rejected cases is posted every Monday in the pressroom and online at

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/orders/08ordersofthecourt.html 

Occassionally the list is posted on a Friday.

The court usually hears cases on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, starting at 10 a.m., and reserves Fridays for the highly secretive "conferences," when the decisions are made behind locked doors. Each justice has equal voting power, meaning the chief has no greater power than the junior-most justice does.

Each side has 30 minutes to present its case. Bear in mind, no lawyer grandstands, no witnesses speak (despite what you see in movies and on shows like First Mondays), and no rhetorical flourishes poison the august, high-ceilinged room. It's a just-the-facts style of legal argumentation on constitutional points and related decisions of the past. Read the briefs submitted by both sides and available from the court's public information office and online (more on these sources later). Try to cover a case cold and you will not make heads or tails of the arguments.

The petitioner - the side which successfully appealed the case to the court - goes first. Most times, the lawyer will begin, "Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the court," and immediately the questions will come zinging from all sides. The hapless advocates are often unable to complete their sentences; their thoughts are fragmented. Any Kirk-like theatrics will be brusquely cut off; the court is a shrine of Spock-like logic, you see. And at the end of 30 minutes, the chief justice will simply say, "Thank you, Mr. or Miss. ..." and that's that. Sometimes the lawyers and their clients will hold news conferences - outside the court's steps, in a corner of the verandah, for the lack of a better word. Just follow the cameras and microphones.

Tips on Covering the Supreme Court

To cover a particular case, call the Public Information Office ahead of time 202-479-3211.

Kathleen Arberg, public information officer 202-479-3211.

The first two rows of the press section are reserved for reporters with permanent Supreme Court press passes. In high-profile cases, the Public Information Office often designates a case as reserve seating only. A media advisory will be posted on the court web site. You need to call in advance to reserve a seat in that case.

Oh, no tape recorders. No electronics of any kind are allowed in the court room even if they're turned off. Only pen and pad for note taking. Transcripts of oral arguments are avalable on the same day the case is heard. Transcripts of cases going back to 2000 are available online at

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_argument_transcripts.html. 

Also, no loud clothing; men must wear jackets and ties, and women must be conservatively dressed. If not, they will be sent behind the drapes and columns so the justices can be spared the sight of your casually dressed self and the insult to decorum you represent. Hey, I didn't make up the rules!

Please, please go to the court (in front of the Capitol) and get the excellent press packet the public information office has prepared. It is a thick folder with a sample term schedule, a past opinion and some guidelines of how to make your time at the Supreme Court easier.

The court is virtually leak proof. You won't get dirt on the inner workings of the Friday conferences. Only the justices attend them, not even their law clerks. And the clerks will not leak - even if you somehow manage to become their best buddies. Leak and they shall be doomed as lawyers. Occasionally, justices will give speeches. These are of value almost solely to the regulars. They almost never grant interviews. If they do, regulars will have first dibs.

Neither the public information office nor the clerk's office will interpret what a particular ruling means. The trick is to look at the "syllabus" accompanying each ruling, which summarizes the decision and lays out, typically in the last paragraph, which justice voted which way. Then go through the majority and minority opinions to pick out the best quotes. The first few times of doing this will be daunting; do a few and do your homework and you will know what the justices are talking about. 

The week before each court session, the court announces which days opinions are expected to be released. You can call the Public Information Office at 202-479-3211, of the court's opinion line at 202-479-3360.

Resources

Now, for some numbers and web sites:

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/ 

(the court's site, with an introduction to the court, media section, etc.)

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/index.html

(Cornell University site authorized to post court rulings about an hour after they are issued - about as "real time" as you can get if you are not at the court physically.)

http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDCTS/

(Emory University site that has links to all the lower federal courts, divided by judicial district. Many of the districts have the prior opinions on a case that has reached the Supreme Court.)

http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/

(The Supreme Court section of findlaw.com, a private service that often posts all the legal briefs online.

http://www.usdoj.gov/osg/

(Home page of the federal government's high court specialist, the solicitor general; falls under the Justice Department. This site has briefs filed by the government for or against a particular case. Don't quote me on the figure, but the federal government is involved in some 70 percent of all cases the court accepts in a particular term, either as one of the affected parties or as a "friend of the court.")

http://docket.medill.northwestern.edu/ 

(a project of Northwestern University, where students write synopses of cases under their professors' supervision. Very good for background. Sometimes links to briefs and prior opinions are also provided.)

Check with the law schools of Georgetown, George Washington, Catholic, George Mason and American universities locally. Ask to speak to the constitutional law professors there. Many of them are neutral court watchers who could interpret what a decision means in plain English. Georgetown, for instance, has a Supreme Court Institute 202-662-9129. Also check with law schools outside DC. Columbia, New York, Duke, Berkeley, Chicago, Harvard, Yale, Virginia, William and Mary, Stanford all have excellent faculties. Also check with the American Bar Association, which puts out an excellent publication called the Supreme Court Preview.

Since the ACLU is involved in many cases, checking their site would serve you well, www.aclu.org.

Does this agency's information need updating? programs@nationalpress.org