The Who2 Blog

The Supreme Court Has a Cool New Website

court3.jpgAt last!  The U.S. Supreme Court has updated its fusty old website with a new SCOTUS 2.0 edition. 

It’s all here: the docket, recent opinions, oral argument transcripts (plus a visitor’s guide), and much more.

As biography hounds, we appreciate the new online bios of all justices (used to be you had to download them in annoying PDF format).  But even better is this fabulous new scrolling timeline of every single justice going back to James Wilson and John Jay in 1789.

court2.jpgSuperfine!

If you think the law is boring, just pick one of the oral argument transcripts at random and start reading.  Here’s  a snippet we found in our random choice of RENICO v. LETT from 29 March 2010:

JUSTICE GINSBURG: …The foreperson at first hesitated. When the court asked the question, “Are you going to reach a unanimous verdict or not,” then there’s no response. And then the court says, “Yes or no?” And only at that second point does the foreperson say “no.” So it was a reluctant “no.”

MR. McGORMLEY: I don’t necessarily believe it was a reluctant no.

JUSTICE SCALIA: She might have been sneezing. I mean, we don’t know what caused the pause, do we?

MR. McGORMLEY: That’s correct, Justice Scalia.

Great testy stuff.  (We couldn’t help but notice that Justice Thomas, true to form, didn’t say a word in the whole case.)

Congratulations to the WOTSCOTUS (Webmaster of the Supreme Court of the United States) on a job well done.

 

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