The Supreme Court - Part 1

The public viewing area of the US Supreme Court has a capacity of about 250.  Some of the seats are available to the general public on a first come, first served basis.  The opportunity to witness a live court session was why I found myself standing on ice outside the great white edifice for two hours on a frigid February morning.  At 8 AM there were only about 20 people in line so things looked great.  But then those with “tickets” showed up.  Tickets are given out to the first 100 people who show up, so those that arrived earlier were automatically ahead of me on line. Many other people with tickets bypassed the line.  Suddenly, the odds of making it in got longer.

Two cases were being heard today.  The second, United States vs Tinklenberg, which involved an argument about the length of time for a “speedy” trial, was far less interesting than the first.  Bond vs United States was the case that most of the crowd knew about and had come to see.  Carol Anne Bond had been convicted of attempting to poison her husband’s lover with a mixture of deadly chemicals.  Her guilt was not in question here; she had confessed and had been convicted in Federal court in 2008.  The issues before the Supreme Court justices were whether the Federal government had overstepped its constitutional bounds by trying her under a statute intended for chemical terrorist attacks, and whether an individual has the right to challenge the government for infringing on a state’s right. 

My colleague Mike and I got lucky on this day and we were two of the last people who made it into the viewing gallery to see the first case.  The frozen, sore feet and the four hours of annual leave were all worth it as we made our way through multiple security checkpoints and were finally escorted into the greatest courtroom in the land. 

The courtroom is truly impressive with towering marble columns on the sides and heavy red drapes between the columns and the windows.  A wide sculpture in relief faced the audience way above the justices heads, and just below the ornate, coffered ceiling.  The nine justices sat behind a long wood bench with Chief Justice Roberts in the center.  The Associate Justices were seated according to seniority with Justices Scalia and Kennedy flanking the Chief.  The next pair was Justices Thomas and Ginsberg, with Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito next.  The two newest members of the court, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan occupied the “cheap” seats at either end of the bench. 

I can only imagine how many hours, days, weeks, or months must go into an attorney’s preparation to argue a case before the Supreme Court.  The case took a little over an hour and the lawyers for each side presented a short summary of their claim, and then fielded questions from the justices.  Many of the questions involved fine legal points that I could not understand, but some were clear even to the non-legal mind. 

This story is going to be too long for one blog so I’m going to let the narrative to this point be part 1.  Tune in later for the conclusion of my morning at the Supreme Court.