Justices Alito and Kagan on Cameras in the Supreme Court (C-SPAN)

yeah you heard me mention in the opening the desire of many to have video as well from the Supreme Court in the past we've had this debate and I've come to the conclusion clearly it's it's your decision and I believe in the independence and the autonomy of a separate branch I just want you to know there are a lot of folks who can't as you know can't get in the Supreme Court to watch these arguments and the case I mentioned and a few others Brown versus Board of Education there were historic brilliant arguments made that only if perhaps a few hundred people could watch in person and I know that there are valid reasons while behavior pre hate change editing and so forth we flub up a lot here but we're on c-span and so our mistakes are live and while in a democracy justices you know the trains don't always run on time we don't always look our best and maybe it has a negative impact the last time we had the discussion it was the anniversary of the release of mr. Smith goes to Washington the reason I bring that up is when that movie was released it was screened before an audience which was largely US Senate and they didn't like it it didn't make us look good the irony was it was also screened in Moscow and Berlin and they made a decision not to show it in their countries because they thought it made us look too good beauties in the eyes of the holder I just like your thoughts on if there's an evolving sense within the court of whether or not to expand to at least some limited video feeds of the arguments the first thing I think I should say is that all of my colleagues and I share your interest in making our proceedings and everything that the court does as accessible to the public as we possibly can consistent with the performance of our paramount function which is to decide cases in the best possible way and I was thinking about this issue of access before coming over here and what I'm gonna say will date me but what occurred to me was how much more accessible the Supreme Court is now than it was when I started out as a lawyer and even before that when I was interested in the work of the Supreme Court when I was in college and and even in high school if someone back in those pre-internet days wanted to read a an opinion that was issued by the court a few years ago it wouldn't be that easy to find a library with reports of the Supreme Court certainly the little municipal library where I grew up didn't have that so you'd have to find a law library or a big library that had the US reports or one of the commercial services and then if you wanted to take a copy home and read it and study it you would have to you might be able to make what we called in those days a Xerox copy by feeding money into a machine now every opinion that we issue is instantly available on our website if you read an article in the paper about a decision that had just been handed down and you wanted to see exactly what the court said that would be even more difficult you would have to find a law library with a subscription service called US law week and that was an expensive subscription service and then you might get a little account of the argument if it was an important case and you would be able within about a week to read the court's opinion now if you wanted a transcript that would be extraordinarily difficult you'd have to find a very good law library and you wouldn't be able to get that for years if you wanted to read the party's briefs that would also be extremely difficult now all of that is available free of charge to anybody who has access to the Internet we issue a transcript of all of our oral arguments on the day when the argument takes place and today it used to be a few years ago that the person the justice asking a question wasn't identified in the transcript now all the justices are identified so you can see exactly what was set every single word and we release the audio of all of our arguments by the end of the week but then we get to the issue on which there's a lot of interest and that is televising our arguments and and I recognize that most people think that our arguments should be televised most of the members of my family think that arguments should be televised I used to think they should be televised when I was on the 3rd circuit we had the opportunity to vote on whether we wanted to allow our arguments to be televised and I voted in favor of it but when I got to the Supreme Court I saw things differently and it wasn't because I was indoctrinated or pressured by my colleagues but I came to see and I do believe that allowing the arguments to be televised would undermine their value to us as a step in decision-making process I think it lawyers would find it irresistible to try to put in a little sound bite in the hope of being that evening on CNN or fox or MSNBC or one of the broadcast networks and that would detract from the value of of the arguments in the decision making process but I write what a thing never happens here's you know I recognize times change and I don't know what our successors years from now will think or maybe even even next year but it has been a while since the members of the court collectively have discussed this issue but it has been our consensus for a while that this would not be although we want as much access as possible we don't want access at the expense of damaging the decision-making process Justice Kagan your thought the invitation to be here we very much appreciate it this question I find it a very difficult question and like Justice Alito my views on this question have somewhat evolved over time and if if you'll me if you'll agree to let me get to the place where I tell you about the cons of cameras I will start by telling you about the pros and very much sympathizing with some of the things that you said chairman Quigley because I think more than just transparency for transparencies sake the the good of having cameras would be the people would see an institution at work which I think does its work pretty well when I was Solicitor General one of the jobs of Solicitor General in addition to arguing every month is that you're always there when members of your office argue and so the time I was Solicitor General I probably sat as a spectator for about 75% of the Supreme Court's arguments and and I was constantly impressed by how the court went about its business that it was thoughtful and it was probing and it was obvious that the justices really wanted to get things right and it's no small benefit if the American public were able to see that because faith in institutions of governance is an incredibly important thing and and and for me the greatest positive of having cameras would be that it would allow the public to see an institution working thoughtfully and deliberately and very much trying to get the right answers all of us together but having said that I will wholeheartedly agree with Justice Alito that the most important thing is that the institution continue to function in that way not that people see it if if the seeing it came at the expense of the way the institution functioned that would be a very bad bargain and I do worry that cameras might come at that expense you know there's that I think it's a principle of physics I think which is about how when you put the observer when the observer comes into the observed thing changes and you commented on Congress and you know if you all were given truth serum I think some of you might agree that hearings change when cameras are there now I have to say I think that they might change in the court in subtle ways I don't think oh that many people would grandstand I hope that my colleagues and I would not do that but I think we would filter ourselves in ways that would be unfortunate in other words the first time you see something on the evening news which taken out of contexts suggest something that you never meant to suggest suggest that you have an opinion on some issue that you in fact don't have but that you you know when I come into the courtroom I play devil's advocate I prove both sides hard and I challenge people in ways that might sound as though I have used on things that I in fact do not just because that's the best way of really understanding the pros and cons of a case and I worry that that kind of questioning which which I think we all find very conducive to good decision making would would you know be damaged if if if there were cameras so I think as Justice Alito expressed I think this is a hard issue I think that there are things to be said on both sides of it and I do what I want to emphasize as he emphasized that we haven't spoken about this together as a conference since I've been at the court but but but but I think that there is real value to be in deliberate and to being careful and to nots doing things that we would later regret in terms of how the institution operates and we'll say just one last point in addition to all the things that Justice Alito said about the ways in which we are transparent I think that the most crucial way that we are transparent is that all our decisions get made with reasons in other words you always know or almost always when we make decisions why we are making them and the views of of the various justices of the court that's the most important thing far more important than the arguments which in fact play a very limited role in our decision-making process thank you so much

Channel: C-SPAN

Views: 43,968

Keywords: Supreme Court, CSPAN, C-SPAN, SCOTUS, Alito, Kagan

Id: GosJsE5KGrU

Length: 11min 42sec (702 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 07 2019