Supreme Court Resources

[Jenson71]

Dedicated to the learning of our government's least understood or recognized branch: the judicial system, specifically The Supreme Court.

There's usually not much media coverage on the Court, because most of what they deal with is really mundane, technical stuff. But for all those looking to learn something more about the Court, how it operates, and current news about it (or if your kid wants to or you want to punish him), check these places:

www.supremecourt.c-span.org has some great stuff, including videos with the Justices themselves speaking about their job. Also videos with experts speaking on discussions from practices and traditions of the Court to particular justices throughout history.

www.scotusblog.com offers very comprehensive commentaries, analysis, a petitions to watch section, and updates daily.

www.oyez.org is a great site that puts all the audio from the Court sessions online. This is awesome if you want to know what an oral argument before the Court sounds like. Here 'Nino' Scalia grill lawyers with questions. Just don't wait for Clarence Thomas to speak up. He hasn't asked a question in four years.

The official site of the Supreme Court is www.supremecourtus.gov. I haven't really liked through this one yet, though.

[DenverChief]

www.oyez.org is a great site that puts all the audio from the Court sessions online. This is awesome if you want to know what an oral argument before the Court sounds like. Here 'Nino' Scalia grill lawyers with questions. Just don't wait for Clarence Thomas to speak up. He hasn't asked a question in four years.



Excellent site used many times in my grad studies

[alnorth]

Interesting links. Was browsing around Oyez today and found a funny little 5-4 decision. Big deal right, we always have 5-4 conservative/liberal decisions in this court. However, the justices involved on each side were such a bizarre collection usually at odds with one another that I had to look into it.

A decision where the majority is Stevens, Scalia, Souter, Thomas, and Ginsburg against a minority of Alito, Roberts, Kennedy, and Breyer? How the heck does that happen?

Give up?

It was Arizona v. Gant, one of those typical 4th amendment search type of cases that splits the conservatives between the libertarian wing and the "cops are always awesome" wing.

From reading the transcript, it sounded like Breyer really wanted to vote the other way, but didnt just because it was against a 27-year-old precedent and he really loves stare decisis. By contrast, Scalia hated the earlier decision so much that he basically said he'd overturn the earlier case unless the precedent was set during a search of Thomas Jefferson's carriage. :)

[banyon]

I check the scotusblog regularly. They do a nice job there.