Live Supreme Court Audio Should Be Permanent, Lawyers Say

The U.S. Supreme Court should make publicly available live audio a permanent feature of oral arguments, more than three dozen lawyers who’ve argued before the court said.

In a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday, 40 members of the Supreme Court bar urged the court to permanently extend live streaming that was adopted during the pandemic. They noted that the grandstanding concerns the justices previously worried about hadn’t occurred.

“Tens of thousands of Americans have come to understand the seriousness and the care with which you and your colleagues treat each case and each advocate who comes before the Court,” the letter said.

The justices have been live streaming arguments since April 2020 when the court was closed to the public due to the pandemic. Prior to that, the only way to hear the proceedings was in-person, typically after standing in what could be hours-long lines.

The justices returned to the courtroom in October 2021 before a limited audience of staff, attorneys, and press. They have agreed to stream audio for upcoming March arguments, but have not indicated whether they plan to do so permanently.

Signatories to the letter have argued more than 460 cases at the high court, according to the watchdog group Fix the Court, including Sidley’s Carter Phillips, Harvard’s Larry Tribe, and Scotusblog founder Tom Goldstein.

The letter also suggests the court live stream the announcement of opinions and eventually consider video access."But neither of these issues appears to be before the Court at the moment,” the letter said.