So we have to be if youre in an enclosed environment be very concerned with what the human body is exhaling. In terms of the future of space station, do we have plans to expand, put different elements on to the space station at this point . Currently on the u. S. Side we just reconfigured the permanent Multi Purpose module from one location to the other location to make room for a docking adopter that we discussed earlier to let commercial vehicles come. Thats about all were going td on the u. S. Side. Theres no major new additions coming. The russians talked about a solar platform to provide solar energy for their segment. The russians talked about another Research Module they may add. We on the u. S. Side dont have any major additions, no. The Bigelow Company has a new concept without the inflatables. Is there any use of this technology . It will be added to space station next year. This is an expandable module that will be added to the station. It will stay there for about a year, year and a half and remove it from station. Instead of a regular pressure shelf, its to understand what we can gain from the expandable technology. It has a very thick wall so it may be better for a penetration trpt. It also may be better thermally. That needs to be looked at. And the acoustic environment may be better. So the idea is to get it on orbit, take those claims, test it on orbit with space station. It might also be cheaper than the traditional way of building a space station. Which is something we should be concerned about. Let me just note two things. Orbital debris continues to be and always was an expanding concern. I believe that this is something nasa should look at not just in terms of space station but we should be thinking about International Cooperative effort to just deal with the debris problem. Thats something we need to this committee should be dealing with at least in the time ahead. And second and last of all let me just note that your report on your cooperation with russia during this time period when there are frictions going on between the United States and russia i think is demonstrates a very wonderful aspect of space. That is once you get up there, you look back down on the earth and some of those problems dont seem as important or you were able to put it in perspective. And im happy to hear that we are and the russians are putting these areas of friction in perspective to the point that we can Work Together and create a better world while were doing it. Thank you very much for demonstrating that to all of us. Thank you. We have just had votes called and i want to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members for all their questions. If we had had time, i would have liked to have gone through a second round. But the record will remain open for two weeks for additional comments and for written comments for members. Its our hope that the office of management and budget will wore more expeditiously with nasa to put together responses to these questions. The committee is waiting for nasas responses to questions from the commercial crew hearing from six months ago. Mr. Gersenmeyer, please send back the message that these delays are not acceptable. The witnesses are excused and this hearing is adjourned. Thank you. This weekend the cspan cities tour travels across the country with time warner cable. To learn more about the literary life and history of lexington, kentucky. Edward pritchard was a state hero who had a tumultuous political career. In the mid 1940s, if you had asked who was a bright shining star in american politics, on a national scale, someone who is going to be governor, perhaps president , a lot of people, car rin graham, ar they are slessinger would have said edward pritchard. He seemed destine for great things and then came back to kentucky and in the mid 1940s, was indicted for stuffing a ballot box, went to prison. So that incredible promise just flamed out. We also visit ashland, the former home of speaker of the house, senator and secretary of state henry clay. The mansion at ashland is a unique situation clays original home had to be torn down and rebuild. It fell into disrepair and his son found that it could be be saved. What we have is a home that is essentially a fivepart federal style home as henry clay had in detail and architectural elements etcetera, and aesthetic details by grand granddaughter granddaughter, greatgranddaughter and so on. Watch it on American History tv on cspan3. Coming up at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, fer chair janet yellen will be on capitol hill. Shell answer questions about the economy and monetary policy. Shell testify before the house finances Services Committee live on cspan3. Later in the day, president obama speaks again about the iran nuclear deal. Congress has 60 days to review the accord and to vote to accept it or reject it or do nothing. The president said he would veto any resolution of disapproval and thats also on cspan3. The Supreme Court term ended a couple of weeks ago with major decisions on health care redistricting and legalizing same sex marriage. Next Supreme Court reporters review the major cases and rulings from this Supreme Court term, giving an inside perspective on what its like to cover the Supreme Court. Good afternoon. Thank you all for coming and welcome to the 27th annual view from the press Gallery Program sponsored by the d. C. Bar section on courts, lawyers and administration of justice. Im arthur spitzer. I work at the legal director of the local office of the American Civil Liberties union, but not wearing that hat here, im wearing my hat as a former member of the Steering Committee of that section of the bar. Our thanks first to arnold and porter for graciously hosting us again this year and thanks to Marsha Tucker and the firms technical staff for making all the oral arrangements. Thanks to cspan which you can see is covering us again this year, if you have any problem with the back of your head being on cspan, you can take this opportunity to sliver off to the side. Its not being broadcast live youll be able to invest in the video on the cspan website probably sometime tomorrow. And many thanks on my former aclu colleagues, chris mohouser who is coordinating this show. Our main sponsor concentrates on matters involving Court Administration and rules between the relationship between the bench and the bar and all aspects of a lawyers relationship to the profession such as ethics, admission standards. It focuses on improving access to justice for everyone in d. C. Its one of 20 sections of the d. C. Bar. 15 others are cosponsors of todays program. Im not going to name them all. The section carrying on most of the bar is work. As you can see from the list they cover most areas of the legal practice. If youre a member of the d. C. Bar and youre not involved in a section, we encourage you to become involved. In youre an aspiring member of the d. C. Bar, we would encourage you to be involved after you graduate law school in a couple of years. If youre not yet a member of the aclu, you can sign up at www. Aclu. Org. Well be privileged to hear from a panel of journalists who have been covering the Supreme Court for a cumulative total of 112 years. Ill introduce them in order of seniority. On my right is tony morrow American Lawyer media. Hes covered the court since 1979. He joined the washington legal times in 2000 Washington Times doesnt cover the court and continued its Supreme Court correspondent after it mernled with the National Law Journal in 2009. David savage next to him on the right has been with the Los Angeles Times since 1981 and covering the court since 1986. In recent years, hes been covering the court for the chicago tribune. Hes offered the latest tradition of quarterly guides to the Supreme Court. Joan biscuip on my left is in charge for Legal Affairs with reuters news. Her most recent book is breaking in, the rise of sonia soto my or ra and the rooiz of justice published last year. Shes the author of biographies of justices Anthony Scalia and sandra day oconnor. Before joining reuters she was a reporter for the Washington Post and usa today. Shes a regular panelist on pbss Washington Week with gwen eiffle. Im going to ask her to tell us about that later. On her left is Robert Barnes who joined the Washington Post as a reporter in 1987 the. Since then, hes been Deputy National editor, National Political editor and the metropolitan editor, but he decided to return to reporting in 2005 and begin covering the Supreme Court in 2006. Bob had been planning to go to law school but changed his mind after returning to a course as an undergraduate. He says it didnt occur to him as it apparently did to others that he could do both but perhaps a better explanation was that he didnt need four years of law school to not practice law. On my far right adam lipparticular who took over the New York Times Supreme Court beat seven years ago, but he has a much longer history with the times as he first joined as a copy boy in 1984 after graduating from college. He then went back for a law degree in 1988 and in 1992 joined the times Legal Department advising the paper and representing it in deaf mission, news gathering and similar issues. A decade later he became a reporter covering legal issues. His work has appeared in the new yorker, vanity fair, Rolling Stone and other publications. This bringing, adam served a marshall with chief Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg recognizing to hear an appeal regarding the affairs of don xuixote. Finally, Kimberly Atkins emailed me this morning to say she was home sick and unable to leave the house. So well be without her this year and hope to see her again next july. This is not a panel of litigators analyzing case law. There are lots of those that you can go to. Although we will talk about some case law but our plan is to talk about the course as an institution and a collection of individuals and about covering the court as journalists. I plan to save some time at the end for questions and answers. There are two mikes set up in the audience. So if questions occur to you during the program, please joet jot them down and ill give you a heads up when its time to go to the mikes. Finally, there should be evaluation forms from the bar. There are not. But a repeat to the reminder you just got check your emails in the next couple of days and you will be getting an email from the bar asking you to fill out an evaluation form and we really appreciate it if you would. We read those evaluationes and we made changes in how we run this Program Based on comments from past years. Last term ended with hobby lobby which was a very complicated issue in multiple conditions. Samesex marriage yes. Obamacare yes. Medazalam, yes. Confederate flag license plates, no. So let me ask the panelist, am i being flip about that . Or did you find the big cases easier to report on this year than last year . David. Youre right. There are a lot of decisions and they were fairley easy to report. There was not a lot of complexity. There was not a lot of divided votes. Its very nice because in this era, adam and bob and i talk about it all the time. We have to file stories within a few minutes, particularly with the health care, gay marriage. Ive done it long enough that i can remember the time when i can read the whole opinion listen to justices read the dissent and now you have to move very quickly. Fortunately, the outcomes were clear, the holdings were very similar. There are not a lot of complications. We were all writing within ten minutes so were grateful to the court. Another thing that i thought i noticed about it this year that seemed somewhat different is how much the decisions were spread out over the month of june was, for the most part, sort of one leading decision per decision day. Jet stream passport june 1e8 was the license plates, june 22nd was the california raisins and then baek and samesex marriage and Death Penalty each on a separate day. Sometimes there have been many. Do you think that was a complete accident or do you think the court has some interest in spreading those high profile decisions around to make your job easier or better decisions . I think the court is not very interested in making life easier for us by spreading things out. I think the only exception may be that they decided not to hand down samesex marriage and Affordable Care act on the same day. Our heads would have exploded and they didnt want to see that. But apart from that, theyre quite adamant about releasing the opinions when theyre ready. I dont think they spread it out. The prior chiefs Justice William rhenquist after one day in june when we all we got like seven or eight opinions on the same day, hundreds of pages we kind of went for him in the chief and said would you please spread it out and he had well, why dont you just save some for the next day. It shows great understanding of how journalism works. I think the new chief woovsh maybe a little more sensitive to this, but maybe other people have different views. But i dont think they care that much. I thought that you tried to have a little fun at our experience when at the end of the last day there were three decisions that were big and all of which we knew we would be writing about when he finished, she said i have two retirements to announce. And i sort of felt like i was going to throw up there for a second. But it was Justice Scalias secretary and someone else. So it wasnt quite what would have really made our day horrible. But that last day was no picnic so we had three Big Decisions and they decided to take a big affirmative action case. Then in the afternoon when we thought we were done, they decided to let a bunch of abortion clinics in texas stay open. So thats five legitimate stories. But what was interesting though, was that the very biggest two cases didnt come on the very last day which typically is the pattern. In fact, i cant remember another term where the case that was most awaited didnt come at the end. Hobby loobbby it was going back to 1992 the casey ruling comes at the end. Typically the hardest, toughest case does come at the end. So there we were on the thursday of last week getting the Obama Health Care law case and then friday getting samesex marriage. Fortunately, everyone up here was ready for that. If theyre going to end on monday, maybe that will come on monday. So it goes to show we need to be ready no matter what. Sometimes a really big decision is going to come before the last day. It always feels like the grand finale at the fourth of July Fireworks and then theres a boom boom, boom, and then boom boom boom, boom. Last year, many of you reported and we talked here about how the justices had a greater proportion of unanimous decisions than they had for decades, about 65 and how dissenting opinions had fall frn 52 the year before to only 31. And we talked about whether chief Justice Roberts was making good on his promise to try to be a unifier. Then this term, just the opposite. Unanimous decisions were down to 40 . 68 dissents more than twice as many as last year. 54 decisions were up 41 . Is the chief losing his magic powers or whats going on . Bob. I think its that every term is different and thats what we thats what we learn all the time. The issues that are presented to them are what really is controlling about how they do things. We all said last year, too, that even though there were a lot of unanimous decisions, they werent really unanimous. They were unanimous in the judgment, but they were not unanimous in the reasoning. And the court was just as divided by ideology as it was this year. I think that really has to do with that whats up for them to decide every term. If the justices were to take the same types of cases each year, we would probably have a better time measuring them year to year. But i think the statistics could be misleading, like so many people have talked about theres this liberal tilt this year. Next year well be up here saying the conservative tilt again. It really does depend on what is before them and as bob mentioned, how broadly theyre going to rule. If theyre going to go super narrow, theyre going to get more unanimity and then youll find in the details and in the consents and concurrences, youll find more splits. I think theres 0. Been some talk about the liberals being more disciplined this year and falling in line with a single majority or dissent and not having a lot of concurrences. And i think thats it was notable, but i think most justices dont feel that way. Justice alito once said i asked him why he writes dissents. One is just he could have just joined the you know or why he writes concurrences which he could have joined the majority. And he said, its like somebody coming to your front door and asking you to sign a petition. Would you sign a petition that you dont really believe in . So i think they all feel like they have a responsibility to say their own piece about important cases. Do you think that goes for the samesex marriage case . I mean, there was the line in the ska lena dissent, a stinging line that even if he wanted to achieve that outcome he would hide his head in a paper bag before joining the airy formations of Justice Kennedy. I was going to ask a little about that. In Justice Kennedys majority opinion, he talks about he ex stoles the institution of marriage. He says its a unique full illment to those who find meaning in the secular realm and is essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations. And yet Justice Kagan who has never been married i wonder if she thinks marriage is essential to her most profound hopes and aspirations. Justice sotomayor signed that opinion. And what i thought was the most interesting thing about that footnote was actually not the reference to putting his head in a bag, but what he said about even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote he wouldnt join such as opinion. What weve always heard from the justices is they dont trade votes and they expressed their own views. Was he lifting the curtain on the vote . No way. Kennedy was the one who wrote it and kennedy would have been the fifth as a more conservative member. As we all know, this was kennedys error of the law. Kennedy was not a reluctant fifth to sign on to with the liberal owes gay marriage. And actually, didnt we just have oh, Justice Ginsburg at the American Constitution Society addressed the vote trading horse trading idea and says it doesnt happen at least among the liberals. No. You could mention the kennedy opinion where people write separately and more money protection principals in a concurrence. But nobody did. And isnt that quite curious . That there was no conquering opinion opinions talking more about equal protection or talking about how marriage maybe isnt the only way to find personal fulfillment . Well, maybe they took the advice that Justice Ginsburg talk bes all the time that her motherinlaw gave her when she got married is that sometimes its helpful to be a little death. Deaf. And i think they may have felt that since it was a 54 decision already, you know, deaf. And i think they may have felt that since it was a 54 decision already, you know, and i think they may have felt that since it was a 54 decision already, you knowdeaf. And i think they may have felt that since it was a 54 decision already, you know, something as momentous youd like to have as many opinions as possible. So why dilute it with concurrences or half approvals so lets just keep our mouth shut and stick with the majority. There were a lot of odd lines in reading through that opinion. One that caught my attention, john roberts said in the dissent that if this institution was good enough for the cars beginans and the aztecs, who are we to change it . I thought, this sounds like a setup for stevenphen colbert or lewis black or the aztecs . I thought they were known for human sacrifice, not for family values. It turns out you can cite international law. So speaking of expressing ones own opinion Justice Thomas wrote 57 opinions this year 37 total opinions, 19 dissents, 11 concurrences. He obviously is a believer in not signing a petition he doesnt totally agree and is expressing his own views. So i wonder, do you have any theories on why hes writing so much . Is he trying to make up for never asking a question, just to show us that hes awake . And how do these separate opinions affect how you cover the cases . I dont have a great theory on any of that. I do think Justice Thomas has always been a contrarian who likes to go his own way. Its one of the strongest things you remember about him from 20 or 25 years ago. He always viewed himself proudly as i think for myself and go my own way. And the entire time hes been on the court, hes devoted a lot of effort, almost every year he writes some very long separate dissent making a completely different view of why the Voting Rights act is wrong or whatever or he writes these separate short dissents. So i think its very much in keeping with him to sort of say im going to have my own say about this and i dont see it the way the rest of them do. I thought it was interesting too, he often writes to repeat what he has said in the past, that he doesnt think something is constitution and hes not going to give up on it. Hes going to make that point again i think in hopes that others are going to eventually come to his point of view. Its kind of interesting when the Affordable Care a act that Justice Kennedy joined the majority and didnt write i dont think, that this whole act is completely unconstitutional. But im going a long with this decision. In addition to writing dissenting and conquering opinions is sometimes justices express their consent and dissent concurrently. Do those serve a purpose in your coverage of the case . Do they change your story . Do tleth more column inches from your editors . Is that something you focus on . I think theyre worth noting for sure. Thats why some of us go upstairs for the announcement of the opinions in case a dissent is read. It adds some drama. Also, you kind of get to see the demeanor of the justices. And i think the you know, the last day of the term when they announce the Death Penalty case there were two dissents read and then Justice Scalia read from his concurrence, which was a lot of which was responding to briers dissent. So we almost had a dissent from a dissent. Those are always unusual. It was so bitter and deeply felt, that it was an awkward feeling in the courtroom. Theres no way to capture that if youre not there. So i think those are important to cover. You get a picture of what the individual justices think the importance of the decision is. Because they have to condense it. You know wrb it will be a 38page written decision and then they figure out, what do we want to read from the bench . A couple of the justices including Justice Scalia will give us the written rendition for later, which is very helpful. And i think that tony is right you get to see the drama of it and you get to see the highlights. And you can see whether a justice sitting next to the one who is reading pulls back or doesnt. And one of the better moments of the announcement in the Affordable Care act came when first chief Justice John Roberts read for about 10 minutes saying the law was upheld and he did it with much more vigor and confidence this time around than he did in 2012 when he read the decision. In fact, i think we talked about it at the end of the 2000 in july of 2012 the chief was on this zigzag thing going, okay this is what i dont like about it, this is what i like about it. It was obviously very complicated the way he would have together the competing rationale to uphold the Affordable Care act in 2012. And there seemed to be a little bit of hesitancy. This time, you could see the confidence of where they were at. He obviously picked up the sixth vote from kennedy to have the majority. He basically said, Look Congress isnt neat. What it wrote here was not artful. Problems. But thats not why were here. Were here to see what was congresss intention and give it a fair reading. So he finishes up and then comes Justice Scalia to read his dissent. As you all know, they sit by order of seniority. So scalia is going on and entouraging what the fellow in the center chair has just done and then he reminds everyone of what the chief had done back in 2012 to uphold it and he said we might as well call it scotus chair. As he says that its the only time when the chief breaks a little bit of a grin. Give sa he leah credit for something colorful, but thats about it. I looked at the way several of you covered that case. Those of you who do the daily reporting. They were somewhat different. Let me just ask you a question about why you chose to write the way you did. David, in the very first sentence of your report you say the first half of the sentence says the Supreme Court cleared the way for oklahoma to continue using the lethal drug cocktail. But the second half of that same sentence was two liberal justices opened the door to who could become a historic challenge to the Death Penalty. Bob, you didnt get to the dissents until the fourth paragraph of your coverage and adam, you got to it in the second sentence which was also the second paragraph but ended your story with a quote from Justice Alito in the majority. And the other two david ended with more from the dissent and, bob, your story ended with several instances of botched executions. Which which, one might say leaned more towards the dissenters than the majority. Why did you make those . Go ahead first. Thats one of those cases where theres clearly several different ways to write the story. Theres a 54 vote. Oklahoma wins. The lethal injections can go forward. Justice brier reads and delivers a very long dissent saying for him for the first time joining Ruth Ginsburg basically saying that the Death Penalty is unconstitutional. And i thought it was a really interesting formulation which was that he said what wheelchair learned over the last 20 years is there are a lot of people on death row who are incident, who were wrongly convicted. And it takes 20 or 30 years on average before anybody is executed. So he said, we could speed up the process, but then increase the likelihood that were executing an innocent person, or we could allow these appeals to go on forever and in which case there is no dethd penalty system in this country. So he said i conclude it really cant work. I thought it was an interesting dissent. I went back to the office, the way the web works, you get to write two or three dirchbs different stories in the day. The first story i wrote, oklahoma wins. But i went back to the office and i said you know this case is actually going to be i think potentially more interesting and more significant because it really sets the stage for a much broader attack on the constitutionality of Capital Punishment which may take two or three years out. So to give a long answer to your question, by the end of the day, i tried to say both in the league and thats why. So i think that analysis is exactly right. And the executive up with my piece is sort of in the same order. Its a significant enough question. Can they use a particular execution drug. But thats not a decision for the ages. It did give rise to a very interesting and bitter dispute between the five justice, the majority, and the four in the dissent. But the fact that we have, as we do periodically, have senior more liberal justices say im not doing this any more, im not going to tinker with the machinery of death any more, is the more lasting piece of this particular decision. So i think thats something you want to put up high. And then you asked why i ended with a a lito. I certainly do think that the weight of the beast does have to acknowledge what the majority are doing. Alito said something quite interesting that moved off of the description of the crimes for which these three oklahoma inmates had been put on death row for. So that was my thinking. But as this illustrates theres no perfect, ideal way of doing it. Things are going to be slightly different. And most of us are in pretty much the same place. When i look at my story in the morning and davids story and bobs story for most stories, they look alarm going similar. They often have a similar lead, a similar first quote. You know, newspaper work is, in a way, fairley narrow craft. Wouldnt you be concerned, though if we differed on the outcome of who won and who lost . The thing is, theyre both wrong. Because what you really found from that is that there are seven justices who didnt question the constitutionality of the Death Penalty and that what i thought was starring in this was that it was a narrow, but i thought i think the end of my lead was unequivocal directive that states could experiment with ways to execute people and the court wasnt going to get in the way wasnt going to get in the way of that. You know i do think that two of them dissented. I thought waits interesting that the other two liberals didnt. Rifs especially interesting and i dont have for Justice Sotomayor who is most questioning of the Death Penalty, maybe it means its going to mean more later. If she does that maybe that would show some sort of momentum rather than its just a minority of the justices who feel that way. But i thought that was an interesting part of it, too. I hear your reasoning sooner put my head in a paper bag than i was going to respond to something bob said. Justice alito made a point about the difference between what justices brier and ginsburg were saying and Justice Sotomayor. He said i leave it to the audience to see how different they really are. I should mention that i dont write our daily stories the way these reporters do. Lauren certainly does that for us. But i will often write a sidebar or analysis piece and i did a separate on just these two senior liberals calling for a reexamination of the Death Penalty. And i did have to be aware of how long ive been covering this thing because i remember distinctly in 19934 when harry black todayman said i should no longer tinker with the liberty of death. And i was around in the late 80s when two justices alone dissenting from Capital Punishment saying they were categorically against that. So the fact that ginsburg and brier were hinting they would go that way and actually they didnt outright said they were. They said we would like to review it. But Justice Stephens did say that in the last case, too. But it wasnt until he got off the bench that he called for a stronger but some of that leads to why not sotomayor and kagan. I think for 20 years youre reviewing all the time lastminute stays of execution, on vacation, pulled out of the opera, having to vote on these things and seeing that theres the liberals would say theres no rhyme or reason to who lives and who dies. At some point you probably get a quaysy feeling in the pit of your stomach. I agree with that. Orren wrote a very good piece on the blog about the weariness. But i sent warren a note. I thought theres actually one or thing that would catch your attention. Its the issue i raised earlier. Suppose year after year, youve had to approve, you know lastminute requests or some sort of question about an appeal on a Death Penalty case and you said, oh theres no grounds for further appeal. And then you learn maybe reading in the newspaper or whatever that that fellow was innocent. I would be i speak for myself i would find it wow. Because i sort of would feel as a justice its our responsibility to get these right. Imagine if you then learned that you turned down a lot of appeals for somebody who said we need more money to investigate this and look into that and you had, no, theres no grounds for that sort of appeal. Youve looked it it you read it youve turned it down and then you learned the person was innocent. I would have thought you know, if that happened once and then again id think i cant trust this system. Do you want to clear the way to somebody to be actually execute ed at 11 00 at night when youve had the experience last year and the year before that and the year before that that some of these people were innocent. So i think thats one of the things that might change your view over time. Speaking bob to your question of why Justice Sotomayor didnt join she wrote such a strong dissent on the merits about what was going to be done for these prisoners was more or less burning them at the stake, that she maybe didnt want to distract attention from that message by putting her voice with the other two on this broader question. Does that make any sense . It could be. As i said, i dont know why she wouldnt. You know this issue was the oral argument in this case was the most contentious ive seen in my short relative to everyone else time at the court. It was really nasty. And there were really you saw how deep the divisions are among the justices on this issue. You know this is the one where they answered each other and kagan brought up the burning from the inside and alito answered her and they werent waiting for the for the advocates to say anything in this. And the chief justice finally gave more time to the advocate saying, you know to a degree thats unusual even for this court, we havent let you talk. And so he gave them some more time to talk. And so you know i think there was some real bad feelings among the justices about this case, about this drug and about this issue. And i think well see that come up more and more. And do you remember how it came up you know this bob, this was a real unusual situation. In january, four of these oklahoma murderers had this appeal there raising this question. One of them, a guy named warner was about to be executed. So on a whatever thursday night, they allowed warner to be executed with four dissents. Then the next week they essentially granted his case. You know, they granted the case of the three remaining murderers. And i thought, boy, theres a way to have an unhappy workplace when, you know five of you let the guy get executed and four of you then want to grant the case. So you could tell from the begin b, there was a real divide on this one. Didnt there used to by a courtesy for a socalled fifth vote in these cases . Yes. Since you need four justices to grant cert and five to grant a stay, you know if there werent enough votes for a stay somebody would come over so that the person wouldnt be executed while his case was going to be heard. And youre right, that seems to have disappeared we dont know why this happened in this case. Some people have said maybe the papers werent properly before them but it does its not a a its not pretty to have somebody executed while them giving the green light to the execution and a few days later they grant cert and then the case he was part of. Let me ask a slightly more substantive question, do you think it made any sense for brier and ginsburg to essentially call for people to bring challenges to dealt penalty to this court . I suppose they know Anthony Kennedy better than anybody else, but hasnt he been a complete hard liner on criminal punishment issues the day he got to the court . You know, not on the Death Penalty, hes been in the lead and cutting back on categories of people and categories of crimes that are penalty eligible. It also goes to the point that joan made earlier, the status quo is we have the Death Penalty. If you can get four votes to put something on the agenda, maybe you pick up the fifth vote, maybe you dont, but you probably dont make life worse for your side. And what iffor view is this is a legal challenge that would be four or five years in the making . Who knows who is going to be on the court four or five years from now . So i think its not something thats going to change in six months, but brier was basically saying there should be a broader, well thought out challenge to Capital Punishment across the board. I suppose the question is how do you stop some lawyer from somewhere in the country from filing that challenge tomorrow who wants to go to the Supreme Court and who has a client on death row and feels its his obligation to get that issue up there . I think the answer is probably you cant. That seems like a question for you, art. Yes, well, we tried. But as thousands of lawyers around the country with cases and they dont listen to me. But sort of responding to my own question about Justice Kennedy, one thing he did this term that surprised, i think, everyone, was his conquering opinion sort of out of the blue on solitary confinement. Did any of you pick that up and write about it . Its not out of the blue, actually. Hes talked about that before. But it was out on the blue in the particular case. Yeah. It was unusual to the case but its been a concern of his. Actually he you know, it might be his interest a little bit and some International Issues also that he has stepped back from some big issues to call attention to problems and i thought that was an example of that even though it might not have been the best case for it. And it did get attention in the media beyond just the case itself. Because theres an issue where someone really ought to bring a case. As you know, kennedy is leaning your way there may ought to be five votes. One of the an aclu attorney told me, art, is that in a lot of these states, people are automatically sentenced to solitary confinement on death wrote. In other words you dont have to do anything bad or judged to be particularly dangerous. Its just like an automatic matter. And kennedy quoted all sorts of literary figures as saying this is in effect a fate worse than death. And so i thought it was a really interesting i mean that is one of the things about this term that i dont recall any so many people writing separate opinions concurrences dissents, taking a big view that speaking to a broader legal audience and sort of setting the stage for future cases. And then it gave rise to a response from Justice Thomas. And this wasnt one of his 30paragraph attacks on the state. He said these peoples living quarters are much more spacious than their victims. Right. Which struck me as verging on inappropriate. But did any of you express directly or indirectly, by quoting someone elses opinions about that rejoinder . I certainly would not judge it inappropriate. He wrote several opinions, dissents or i guess concurrences in Death Penalty cases where he went to great length, talked told the story of the victim and what the victims family the devastation of this murder. Toppaces view is were deciding an act tract question of appeal 20 years down the road and weve sort of scrubbed away the victim and the impact of this horrible murder. And id be the last one to say its inappropriate to write that. I thought its a different important perspective. He included a picture. Im sorry. He included a picture of the victim in one of the cases, too as part of the opinion which was a departure. But, again i think were seeing different ways that were not just seeing the departures. I think the average reader can draw his other her conclusion about the appropriateness of the remark. Joan, you wrote a story saying this is an art form. Tell us a little bit more about what you wrote and why that was a worthwhile story . Well, when youre up there the nine of them have a distinct approach to how they want to read their opinion. And actually Justice Thomas, who you observed earlier doesnt speak from the bench. Sometimes when he reads from the bench hell make a joke so you get a little of his personality in it. They tell more of a tale. Justice kagan really likes to talk about the facts behind the case and both she and the chief justice va nice come here and listen to my story way of approaching it for the spectators in the courtroom. Justice ginsburg takes a lot of time with her reading. Shes another one who hands out the rendition of what she says from the bench so we can quote directly from it. We dont know what opinions are coming on what day. So when the chief says jufts spitzer will now announce the opinion in 1442, youre like oh my gosh, what direction will it take by virtue of who is going to read it . For example, that happened in a case when the chief says its Justice Kennedy the suspend was hidened by what side he would take. So its they kind of play alone long to make it more of a tale getting to the culmination, the climax at the end with whether theyve said yes or no. Just a post script to what joan was saying about the opinion announcements. From what she said, i think we could all agree that illustrate would sure be nice for the public to be able to hear them, those opinion announcements. But the court has a special disdain for that because they sometimes allow the audio of the oral argument to be released fairley soon aefrts. But the audio of the opinion announcements they send to siberia and theyre not public until months later when the National Archives processes them. And the reason for that, its fairley clear past justices and current justices have said that sometimes they hear a fellow justice announce an opinion that they were part of and they think, ghee whiz, i didnt you know i didnt agree to all that stuff. The opinion announcements are not distributed to the other justices in the majority so that sometimes the justices will sort of put their own spin on the majority opinion and theyll go off script sometimes and justices then end up afterwards saying you know, if i had known what he or she was going to say, i wouldnt have joined the majority. So i think for that reason they dont want opinion announcement, the audio, to be out there quickly as and be treated by us as the sort of official summary of what the opinion is. I was just going to say sometimes there is no suspension when they announce them as Justice Alito began one and i cant remember the defendants name but he said the defendant said that he had take care of his girlfriends two children when he sent her to be a prostitute in waud. It doesnt take a blood hound to know how that one is going to come out, i dont think. Actually whenever the announcement is Justice Alito has that was certainly clear in the Death Penalty cases. There are even instances when some justice is listening to the announcement and thinks i didnt sign on to that. There was an instance where Justice Thomas was announcing his own opinion and he came across a line that he wasnt sure i signed on to. It was about synthetic drugs that said bath salts and he said i have no idea what that sentence means. Tony, you write for an audience of lawyers. How does that make a difference in how you cover the court from the others . How does that affect what you cover and how you cover it . Well, not as much as you might think. My previous newspaper was usa today i so there is sort of a dramatic difference between the coverage there and where i am now. Mostly in terms of length. When i first started at usa today this is before joan went there, a 600word story was really long. So you would summarize a Supreme Court decision in 600 words or 400 word. And thats a challenge. But still, even though my audiences is mainly lawyers at the National Law Journal not every real estate lawyer knows about Securities Law or criminal defense lawyers dont know about erisa and so you still have to use plain english as much as you can and although i cant sort of i can use habeas corpus and not have to define it in every story. So there are some advantages. What was the story . That was is saga of howard shipley, the lawyer, it was the first time in years when the court threatened to discipline a lawyer for the cert petition that he wrote. And to make a long story short showered shipley filed a petition in patent case which that is already a challenge to make understandable. But it turned out that his client a german industrialist who was not an english speaker insisted on writing the brief the petition himself. And when the lawyer said you know, we really need to change this he said no and the lawyer decided to go ahead and file the petition anyway and it was complete jibberish