Judge Judy: Put Supreme Court On TV
Judge Judith Sheindlin guested on my show Monday night. When she served in New York she was an advocate for cameras in the courtroom, and so I asked her if she believes they belong in the Supreme Court.
Click here for reuse options!COLMES: Would you like to see cameras in the Supreme Court?
JUDGE JUDY: Absolutely. Absolutely.
COLMES: Wouldn’t that be great?
JUDGE JUDY: We pay for the government. I mean this is not their government, this is our government. The executive branch of the government, the judicial branch of the government. We’re not asking to go back into chambers when you’re arguing, but to hear oral arguments in the Supreme Court, everybody should be able to see that.
COLMES: Judges would learn to not play to the camera. Eventually your forget that the camera’s there I guess at some point.
JUDGE JUDY: I actually don’t think that they would. They’re academics and one they got used to unobtrusive cameras that are on all the time, they don’t even think about it. But I don’t think it would have to happen just for a specific case…Cameras should be in all courtrooms, I think transparency is good, the American public deserves to have a system they pay for available to them. OK, off my soapbox!
Copyright 2015 Liberaland
8 responses to Judge Judy: Put Supreme Court On TV
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Budda November 10th, 2015 at 10:38
And just what would be the argument against cameras in court rooms? Citizens are entitled to the transparency that cameras would bring.
Glen November 10th, 2015 at 17:34
While I can see the virtues of that argument, I can also see the virtue of keeping cameras out. When it comes to the most important decisions, it’s important that both sides be able to make their arguments without fear of popular backlash, for the same reason as why political negotiations between countries generally get done behind closed doors, with only the final deal being public and not the intermediate haggling, etc.
I don’t know whether I’d say the transparency trumps that argument, or vice versa. It’s a tough call.
fahvel November 11th, 2015 at 05:17
it’s not a tough call- anyone deciding for someone else must must be open and visible – this secret shit is what govts have been doing forever and look what the results are since, at least, Sumeria.
allison1050 November 10th, 2015 at 11:43
I could handle watching oral arguments.
MyDogsAreSmarterThanYou November 10th, 2015 at 12:52
Awesome, I’d get to watch Clarence Thomas nod off.
MyDogsAreSmarterThanYou November 10th, 2015 at 12:54
I love cameras in the courtroom. Especially Florida courtrooms. That way you can see judges take lawyers out into the hallway, whip their *ss, and then come back to the courtroom and try defendants without legal representation. And then I can watch them not arrest, not get thrown off the bench, and not get disbarred!
fahvel November 11th, 2015 at 04:15
every nuance, every word, every signature etc coming from an elected official or their appointees should always be public – no secrets ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Glen November 11th, 2015 at 12:11
That’s why the Court gets majority and dissenting opinions published – so that the actual arguments that decided things can be aired. You confuse private with secret. The court itself is private, but not secret. What that means is that you’re likely to get the most honest, least “sanitised” form of each side’s argument. If those putting forward the arguments have to fear popular anger, then the whole point of the courts is lost.
Because there’s a name for opinions being sanitised in order to maintain popularity – it’s called politics, and it has no place in the courtroom. Politics tends to favour the view of the majority. The courts exist to uphold the laws that protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Government works by democracy, which is majority rule. Courts then temper government, and minimise the tyranny of the majority, and they need to be able to do that effectively.
And that’s what makes it a tough call. Transparency makes the courts more trustworthy in one sense, but it also allows the tyranny of the majority to control all parts of the system.
What you have done, instead, is reduce the whole thing down to an oversimplified black-and-white view in which “secrecy bad, transparency good”, without considering the side-effects of transparency.