The NY Times IS increasing it’s coverage of the High Court and it’s secret’s….
The Supreme make decisions that are NOT challenged …
Their calls effect a country of over 340 Million people and countries around the planet …
In the end?
They are lawyers (You don’t actually have to be) who eat and go to the bathroom like everyone else…
They ARE political and hustle to make money and get free stuff on the side also….
And they CERTAINLY have their FAVOURITES in government…
Local and State courts have elected judges….
Their work comes under scrutiny from the media….
Why shouldn’t the Supreme’s?
To do this work, The Times has built out its Supreme Court reporting team.
Adam Liptak, who practiced law for 14 years, has been the dominant and authoritative voice on the beat since he began covering the court in 2008. He has just taken on a new role, chief legal affairs correspondent, and will soon start writing a weekly newsletter, The Docket, about the most pressing legal questions of the day.
Nearly four years ago, Jodi Kantor, an investigative reporter with a track record of telling difficult stories, began taking readers inside the institution and delivering telling portraits of how the justices exercise their power, often working with Adam. In 2023, The Times added an investigative reporter and lawyer, Abbie VanSickle, to the team. Last summer Ann E. Marimow, who previously covered the court at The Washington Post, took over Adam’s role writing about major cases.
I recently spoke with the four reporters about how they cover the court and why they’re delving more into what goes on behind the scenes.
What we’re doing more of is piercing the secrecy of America’s most secretive branch of government. That’s not easy. It also might not be clear to readers why it matters, since it’s the legal decisions in cases that shape society.
JODI KANTOR: Our coverage of cases is essential. The court’s arguments and decisions are hard to understand — unless you’re a lawyer, the words can feel more like Latin than everyday English. People all over the world have relied on explanations of cases by Adam and now Ann and Abbie.
But in recent years, we’ve also started to assemble a behind-the-scenes portrait of the court, for a simple reason: In journalism, scrutinizing the powerful is Job 1.
You’re referring particularly to the nine justices — or to paraphrase President Trump, the nine unelected judges….
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MARIMOW: The court is a particular kind of workplace — highly insular and steeped in reverence for the justices, the law and the court’s traditions. The young lawyers who land coveted clerkships at the Supreme Court, for instance, have impeccable credentials and rely on trusting relationships with their justices for career advancement. So they may be worried about saying or doing anything that would jeopardize that important relationship. Many of the justices say that they think of their clerks as family.
Adam, you now have this new role digging into legal affairs more broadly and writing the weekly newsletter. What are some of the questions and ideas you want to explore?
LIPTAK: The entire justice system — not just the Supreme Court — is being tested by the Trump administration. I want to help readers make sense of the cacophony of Trump-related developments that seem to arrive almost hourly and to answer some of the big questions: Can he do that? Can the courts stop him? Should they? Will they?
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A final question. What’s a reporting judgment call or a thorny editorial issue that you’ve wrestled with on this beat that perhaps helps us understand better what goes into your job?
VanSICKLE: I’ve struggled with how to characterize emergency orders from the court. Readers, understandably, want to know how the justices voted and why. But these emergency rulings don’t include a vote count. And many of them don’t include any reasoning. Even the most robust ones often only give a few paragraphs. The justices are typically weighing in on temporary rulings by lower courts, rather than a case where the evidence on both sides has been fully explored. And yet, these cases can have huge, lasting consequences. I try to include reminders in the stories that we often don’t know how the justices vote in these cases, and I also try to flag that we don’t get much reasoning from the court. But that feels sort of unsatisfying, as I hear from readers all the time. I feel that frustration….
The Court has become more secreative due to leaks…
In November of 2024, two weeks after voters returned President Donald Trump to office, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. summoned employees of the U.S. Supreme Court for an unusual announcement. Facing them in a grand conference room beneath ornate chandeliers, he requested they each sign a nondisclosure agreement promising to keep the court’s inner workings secret.
The chief justice acted after a series of unusual leaks of internal court documents, most notably of the decision overturning the right to abortion, and news reports about ethical lapses by the justices. Trust in the institution was languishing at a historic low. Debate was intensifying over whether the black box institution should be more transparent.
Instead, the chief justice tightened the court’s hold on information.Its employees have long been expected to stay silent about what they witness behind the scenes. But starting that autumn, in a move that has not been previously reported, the chief justice converted what was once a norm into a formal contract, according to five people familiar with the shift.
Over the years, journalists and authors have sought to penetrate the court, and the justices have tried varying methods to guard its secrets. Some generations of clerks, but not others, said they were asked to sign a different kind of confidentiality pledge…
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The people who described the agreements spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about court matters.
The justices are accustomed to controlling what the public knows about their work, sealing nearly everything but their oral arguments and written opinions behind a high wall of secrecy. Courts are excluded from the open records laws that require many other government bodies to maintain and make available internal information.
The justices claim their papers belong to them, not the government or the public, and generally arrange to have them locked away until long after their deaths. The court releases no visitor logs to reveal who meets with the justices….
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More recently, The Times has been regularly publishing stories illuminating the court’s inner workings, including accounts of sensitive debates among the justices….
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The debate over whether the Supreme Court is too secretive has played out since the nation’s earliest days. In 1821, Thomas Jefferson wrote that the institution was “smothering evidence” and that the nation needed to know more about the character of the justices, who are appointed for life….
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“Many of the court’s decisions are being made out of the public eye in a way that makes it difficult to assess or criticize them, or to understand what actually motivated the justices,” he said. “The lack of transparency makes it difficult for the broader public to know how to respond.”
He said it also allows the court to conceal weaknesses in its processes, including the justices’ reliance on clerks for legal reasoning and writing.
“If the public were aware of how much of the deliberations affecting millions of people are made by 27-year-olds after happy hour, they’d be shocked,” he said….
Note….
These days Lower Federal judges, Courts and Appeals Courts have been inactive wrestling match with the faction in the court headed by Same Alito who seems to be workin g overtime to cover President Trump’s foot prints….
image…First Liberty
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