I'm a bit of a Supreme Court junkie -- and have been ever since I read Woodward and Armstrong's The Brethren as a teenager. And one of the realities that I have long struggled with is that the dry focus on precedents and case law obscures the individual appellants and respondents in the cases -- the folks whose lives are the fodder for the decisions rendered by the justices.

The Washington Post does a nice article on one of the individuals at the heart of one of this year's cases, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

Lilly M. Ledbetter says she almost stopped breathing when she heard her name called that day, her eight-year battle over alleged pay discrimination finally reaching the ultimate legal forum, the U.S. Supreme Court.

"We'll hear argument next in Ledbetter versus Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. announced.

The odds are akin to being struck by lightning, having your case plucked from the thousands of others who have vowed, like you, to take the fight all the way to the Supreme Court. And then you find it's not so much about you anymore.

It was the only time that November morning that any of the nine justices spoke Lilly Ledbetter's name.

When she thought back last week on the arguments before the court, she remembered them as not being much about her complaints about Goodyear, or Goodyear's complaints about her. "Except when my lawyer got up, it [seemed to be] based on changing the law somewhere down the line," she said. "That's what it boils down to, I guess. It tends to leave the person out."

And Ledbetter has it exactly right, as a couple of the justices have publicly acknowledged.

At a forum late last year, Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen G. Breyer, usually the court's yin and yang on matters of constitutional interpretation, agreed that that is how it should be. They were asked whether their duty was to provide justice for those who came before the court or simply to interpret the law.

"The point of the law is to satisfy a human desire for justice," Breyer explained, but he added: "You don't necessarily get to that end by simply trying to look for what is the intuitively nicer result in each case."

Scalia was blunter. "By the time you get up to an appellate court -- and lawyers ought to learn this -- I don't much care about your particular case," he said. "I am not about to produce a better result in your case at the expense of creating terrible results in a hundred other cases."

And that is as it should be, as cold and hard-hearted as it might sound. Court decisions at this level are about the law, since the facts have long since been vetted at the trial court level. These cases are about the broad principles and not the individual circumstances that are impacted by them. Indeed, the justices at this level serve as legal technicians.

But it is still important to remember that there are faces that go with these cases -- and I thank the Washington Post for reminding us of that.

Posted by: Greg at 11:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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We live in an age in which we can turn on the television and see presidential speeches and White House press briefings. We can turn on the television and watch the floor debates of both the House and the Senate, as well as committe hearings from both bodies. Yet we cannot watch some of the most important events in government -- oral arguments before the Supreme Court -- because the justices steadfastly refuse to agree to let cameras into the courtroom. Frankly, this needs to change.

With Supreme Court justices becoming increasingly comfortable in the spotlight, Sen. Arlen Specter says it might finally be time for their close-ups.

Spector (Pa.), joined by two other Republican and three Democratic senators, has refiled his legislation to require the court to televise its proceedings. Although getting the rest of Congress to agree still seems very much a long shot, Specter said there is a big difference between now and last year, when the bill did not reach the Senate floor.

"I think the frequency with which the justices are appearing on television can be a very significant factor" in changing minds in Congress, Specter said in an interview.

There is no doubt that the once-cloistered justices are making themselves more available to the media, giving on-the-record interviews with newspapers and magazines and popping up on television. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. starred in PBS's recent look at the history of the court.

Specter, former chairman of the Judiciary Committee and sometimes a sharp critic of the court, said the individual justices have been "extensively televised."

Now honestly, I think Specter's argument here is hogwash -- the fact that justices appear on television outside of the courtroom does not argue for cameras in the courtroom. However there is a better reason -- increasing the familiarity of the American public with the activities of the most secretive of our three branches of government.

Supreme Court proceedings generally consist of oral arguments by attorneys and announcements of decisions by the justices. There are no witnesses to be intimidated. Lawyers would play to the camera at their peril, as their audience would be the nine individuals seated before them.

On the other hand, this development would provide us with a historical record of the great cases of American history, as well as a deeper understanding of the court. And the confidentiality of the deliberative aspects of the high court's activities -- the conferences in which cases are discussed and the circulation of draft opinions - would be maintained under Specter's proposal.

Frankly, I see nothing to lose and everything to gain if cameras are installed in at the Supreme Court.

Posted by: Greg at 11:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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