Blog Update
Law Dork has this post on the new Court and the Commerce Clause.
Indiana Barriser reports here on a new bill S. 1786, authored by Sen. Arlen Specter, which would allow the televising of United States Supreme Court proceedings.
The Nation has this article on Judge Roberts’ 1985 “AIDS Memo” written for President Reagan, which declared that “we should assume AIDS can be transmitted through casual or routine contact, as is true with many viruses, until it is demonstrated that it cannot be.” The authors of the article contend that by 1983 scientists had identified a retrovirus as the cause of AIDS which was known to infect only upon entering the bloodstream, directly or through mucosal membranes–not through intact skin.
If you want to see an argument for not televising Supreme Court arguments live, just watch a presidential news conference. Watch the preening reporters. Listen to the ballistic questions that have been prepared to get the questioner on the evening news, not to actually obtain useful information.
The last thing the Supreme Court needs is arguments from lawyers who are thinking about getting their five seconds of fame in a video clip on the evening news, rather than making a persuasive argument to the court. Getting on the news means being provocative. Effective argument generally does not.
My suggestion is to video record the arguments via a single camera under the control of the court. Then lock up the recording and play it full length on Saturday morning on CSPAN. After that it is public domain. It would be available for anyone seriously interested in the whole argument, but the news cycle would be long gone, and clips would have no news value.
Comment by Kent Scheidegger — September 27, 2005 @ 9:11 pm