Supreme Court Returns With Skeletal Audience, Piped-in Questions

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in person for the first time in 19 months, kicking off a new term as never before, in a quarter-filled courtroom with piped-in questions from a quarantining justice.

In a session that mixed the reassuringly familiar with the jarringly unprecedented, the justices took up a pair of low-profile cases in the courtroom they last used for arguments in March 2020, before the pandemic forced them to hold arguments by telephone.

The session was full of firsts, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s courtroom debut and Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s participation from home after he ...