"... a common practice that had garnered little attention until a law professor at Harvard wrote about it last year...."
Starting this term, a court statement said, “post-release edits to slip opinions on the court’s website will be highlighted and the date they occur will be noted.”
The Court is also banning "line-standers," another
topic of criticism from a Harvard professor:
Michael J. Sandel, a political philosopher at Harvard, said... “Allowing line-standing companies and scalpers to sell seats in the Supreme Court is yet another instance of letting money dominate democracy... It’s at odds with equal access and undermines the dignity of the court.”
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7 comments:
Allowing audio and visual recording of argumentswould promote equal availability to the public. Most citizens do not live close to DC and can't afford to travel there to stand in line to watch an oral argument.
So prohibiting scalpers is just a fake nod to equality.
There is not equality of access now and there never has been. As long as there are more people who want to get in than there are places, there is not and cannot be equality of access.
Period.
"It’s at odds with equal access and undermines the dignity of the court.”
The court surrendered its dignity in the last session to absurdity and post-modernist chaos. Anything that happens now is merely legalistic pond scum. There is no longer any USSC dignity to undermine.
From White v. Dunbar, 1886, Justice Bradley for the court:
"Some persons seem to suppose that a claim in a patent is like a nose of wax which may be turned and twisted in any direction, by merely referring to the specification, so as to make it include something more than, or something different from, what its words express."
Sure, this case is about construing patent claim text, but in light of recent history in more core constitutional cases, I was very struck by the phrasing.
Let me expand a bit on that quote from White v Dunbar.
I was struck by an analogy between a patent's Claims and Specification parts, on the one hand, and the constitution's Articles and Preamble parts, on the other hand.
Basically, Bradley is saying that (under US patent law) it's the Claims that matter. You cannot use the (generally vague) descriptions in the Specification to "alter and twist" the meaning of the plain text of a Claim.
Could it be that the reputation of SCOTUS would be improved by always FIRST considering the INTENT of the authors of (In this order): The Constitution & Bill Of Rights (Which was a "package deal); Other Amendments; And, statutory law?
What does "Shall not be infringed" mean?
"...post-release edits to slip opinions..."
I'm waiting to see:
Oh, ACA? did we say that was OK? Just kidding. We meant 'No, that sucks, completely unconstitutional.' Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. -s- Notorious RBG et al
cue soundtrack Ride of the Valkyries
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