Behind the scenes at the Supreme Court

Get an idea of ​​the mood after a memorable term.

A few weeks ago, I asked Times Supreme Court correspondent Adam Liptak to preview the major cases that would mark the end of the court's term. Adam was prophetic, correctly foreseeing every major decision. Today, he returns to the newsletter, answering my questions about the atmosphere behind the scenes in court.

David: The last few months have been some of the most unusual in the modern story of the Court - a major leak followed by an abortion decision that, as you wrote, will change American life in major ways. Inside the court, do you think things feel different as well?

Adam: The Supreme Court building has been closed to the public since the beginning of the pandemic. Then, shortly after the leak in early May of a draft opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade, the courthouse was surrounded by an eight-foot fence. Still cloistered and isolated, the court is now impenetrable.

The release of the decision in the abortion case has highlighted another way the court s is shielded from public scrutiny. For unexplained reasons, the judges stopped announcing their decisions from the bench, abandoning a tradition that was both ceremonial and enlightening. Previously, the majority opinion writer would give a quick, conversational summary of the decision that could be extremely valuable to a reporter on deadlines and, by extension, to members of the public trying to understand a decision.

Even more important were oral dissents, reserved for rulings that the minority judges found to be deeply flawed. Ordinarily, one or more of the three dissenting liberal justices in the abortion case would have raised their voices in protest. These days, the court simply publishes PDFs of its decisions, depriving the occasion of ceremony, drama and insight.

So the lawyers who argued the cases and the journalists covering the court are informed of the decisions in the same way as everyone else - by refreshing their browsers. But the judges went back to the courtroom for the arguments, didn't they?

Yes, they took a different approach with the arguments. After hearing from them over the phone for much of the pandemic, the judges returned to the bench in October. Journalists holding press credentials with the Supreme Court were allowed to attend and the public could listen to the live audio broadcast on the Court's website. It's unclear why notices couldn't be announced the same way.

I haven't been to the courthouse since