Punch and Judge Judy

This is particularly astounding in light of the Republican rhetoric at this morning?s subcommittee hearing about televising Supreme Court proceedings. When Judge Anthony Scirica of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals started talking about the ways television allows for ?snippets? of oral argument to be broadcast out of context, the Republicans were horrified. Oh no, not snippets! (?Snippets? is the judicial term of art for what would happen if Stephen Colbert got hold of videotapes of oral arguments.) All morning we were treated to the loftiest explications of how legal thinking is far too complicated for Americans to consume without their brains imploding from the effort. (In 1989 Justice Scalia explained, ?That is why the University of Chicago Law Review is not sold at the 7-Eleven.?) Today we heard that allowing cameras in the court might confuse young people about civics. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said nobody can be expected to comprehend oral argument without reading all the briefs. So which is it? Is the law so simple that a mere sentence can capture an entire judicial career, as it does when Halligan writes? Or is it so complex that even gavel-to-gavel coverage of a case will fail to clarify its bottomless mysteries? Republicans today argued that it?s both.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=d6609e51d21a22a724474047567ddc35

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