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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Courts - SCOTUS Fails to Communicate Effectively to Public
In the Blog of Legal Times, Tony Mauro reports on law dean Erwin Chemerinsky's recent speech, part of a recent "symposium on the Court, the press and the public at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. Scholars and journalists spoke on different aspects of the interaction – or lack thereof -- between the Supreme Court and the public." More:
The Supreme Court is guilty of a broad “failure to communicate” to the public it serves, constitutional scholar and law dean Erwin Chemerinsky said on Friday.And this failure extends beyond the Court’s stubborn resistance to allowing camera coverage of its oral arguments. At almost every point of its decision-making process, according to Chemerinsky, the high court should be doing more to inform the public about what it does. * * *
Chemerinsky did not focus only on the long-running debate over cameras at oral argument, highlighting other deficiencies in its procedures. The Court has pointed with pride to advances in this area, including its web site, where decisions and oral argument transcripts are posted quickly. But Chemerinsky said much more is needed for the Court to explain itself better to litigants and to the public, in the interest of enhancing the Court’s legitimacy and public understanding.
For example, he said the Court owes litigants as well as the public some explanation why it has denied review in pending petitions. The “vast majority” of petitioners, even some that pose a circuit conflict, are denied review without learning why. That, he said, is an “extremely important failure to communicate.”
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 31, 2012 09:19 AM
Posted to Courts in general