The Supreme Court of the United States has declined to renew the press pass of Lyle Denniston. Mr. Denniston is the scholarly, functionally unbiased, and mind-bogglingly quickly analytical correspondent assigned to cover live hearings and dissemination of opinions by the Peabody Award-winning SCOTUSblog, which in turn has become the premier source of accurate and legally weighty reporting on the nation’s highest court.
This is ridiculous. The Court does itself a great disservice by making Mr. Denniston, its most trustworthy journalist, stand in line with the general public to deal with its big cases. I do not and probably never will understand why the Court seems so anxious to swaddle itself out of the public view. Its hearing chamber is ridiculously small, but the Justices seem almost maniacally opposed to the idea of putting in cameras and microphones so the public can follow along with what’s going on in there — notwithstanding that it makes transcripts of its hearings available on a same-day basis on its own website.
Courts must conduct their business in public, and explain their rulings in public. Our ancestors fought a war for political independence for, among other reasons precisely the requirement that court proceedings be held in public. There may be good reasons for particular kinds of cases to occur out of public view, but those should be the exceptions rather than the rule and there ought to be a clear and substantial reason why anything the court does should ever not be made as accessible to the public as anything the President does or anything Congress does.
The Court handles the public’s business, after all. If the Justices are going to be as committed as Justice Kennedy suggests in the link above to explaining themselves and doing their work publicly by way of the written word, then no better, faster, or more dispassionate observer to facilitate a written dispensation and explanation of what it does could be conceived of than Mr. Denniston. Much as I like the Jeffrey Toobins and David Savages of the press corps and have come to appreciate their perspectives so as to reverse-lens their reporting, I’ve never needed to reverse-lens Mr. Denniston.
This seems like one of those flaps that is going to be overturned on appeal because of his stature and importance as a Supreme Court reporter.
Do the Justices themselves have any say in who is and who is not given press passes?
I wonder if Dahlia Lithwick is next.Report
But who does one appeal to in this?
The SC is the ultimate, and final appeal.
Not good. Thanks for the post, Burt.Report
I presume the Chief Justice possesses the power to remedy this.
This is based in part on the extension of press credentials from the Senate. Which boggles my mind because SCOTUS is an entirely different branch of government than the Senate.
Chief Justice Roberts is far from oblivious to things like this and I can only presume that he will step in to remedy the situation, at least with respect to Mr. Denniston’s pass.
As for the crying shame that the Court hides its oral argument chamber from the cameras while still letting people physically in to observe the proceedings, that may take a while longer.Report
Ultimately the people they’re undermining with hamfisted handling of public relations is their own credibility. Which in turn damages the constitutional role of the courts as being a check on the other branches. I think that’s also partly why the FISC is as controversial as it is, there’s now layers of secrecy to the judicial branch’s deliberations.Report
Burt,
Do you think there’s any justice to the worry that counsel and justices will start playing to the cameras?Report
@zic
Whenever there is a press or permit for speech, there is a Constitutionally required appeals process.Report
I’m glad to hear this; and the court system would here it because it’s a Congressional Process, no? Which court would have jurisdiction?
Is there still a bias against blogging as legitimate media that has to qualify for a press pass? That’s so last decade. Scotus Blog performs a significant public service in covering the court; they’re the C-Span of the court.Report
This was already decided in The U.S. Supreme Court v. Everyone Else (1997)Report
Is there any public explanation for this? It feels like a lot of other cases where someone isn’t a real journalist, he’s just a blogger.Report
Frankly, they should be broadcasting court cases like CSPAN does. Ultimately, it’s probably going to take Congress requiring it before they will.
Blah-blah-dignity-of-the-court-blah-blah *eyeroll*Report
Does Congress have authority to do so? Separation of powers and coequal branches,
you know.Report
Well, Congress seemingly has the ability to deny a press pass to a blogger.
There is an unseemly question here of why Congress might be determining these things; they, more then the S.C., could be influenced by money in determining press access. My inner conspiracy-theorist would wonder if someone was lobbied to this end; I’m sure there’s some reason to see advantage in filling the niche Scotus Blog filled, and opportunity if its reporters couldn’t provide content through lack of access.Report
I’d guess that was just about the Court finding it convenient to free ride in some administrative work Congress was going to do anyway. Congress’s denial of a press pass constrains SCOTUS not one whit; it just means they might have to do a bit of that admin task on their own after all.Report
Probably, but there’s no paranoid fantasy of conspiracy and mistrust to be had in that, is there?Report
Yes the courts are public, and we all get access but your job doesn’t guarantee you preferential access. So I’m not sure why the title is the “courts are public” as if the subject is being denied access.Report
Am I reading the SCOTUSBlog tweet wrong? Because it sounds to me like they’re talking about press passes for the Senate, on the Supreme CourtReport