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Kit Beyer is a researcher and writer at Fix the Court, a nonprofit that advocates for greater transparency and accountability in the federal judiciary.<\/em><\/p>\n Please note that SCOTUS Outside Opinions constitute the views of outside contributors and do not\u00a0necessarily\u00a0reflect the opinions of SCOTUSblog or its staff.<\/em><\/p>\n On the morning of May 15, national attention converged on the Supreme Court as the justices heard\u00a0Trump\u00a0<\/em><\/a>v.\u00a0<\/a>CASA<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/a>Inc<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>, a challenge to President Donald Trump\u2019s executive order restricting birthright citizenship. Any interested person could go to the Supreme Court\u2019s website and hear, promptly and firsthand, the justices\u2019 colloquies with advocates.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before these high-stakes proceedings began, however, came another noteworthy event: the announcement of the court\u2019s unanimous opinion in\u00a0Barnes\u00a0<\/em><\/a>v.\u00a0<\/a>Felix<\/em><\/a>. That case concerned a police officer\u2019s use of deadly force, an issue that, like birthright citizenship and many other questions that the court handles each term, evokes broad public attention and debate. We heard the arguments in\u00a0CASA<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 but not the decision in\u00a0Barnes<\/em>. It\u2019s time to close that gap.<\/p>\n The court began livestreaming oral arguments during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and has continued the practice ever since. The livestreams let Americans learn, in real time, about how the justices are approaching the most pressing legal problems of the day. But when it comes to announcing actual decisions \u2013 rulings that instantly affect the application of the law nationwide \u2013 only the\u00a0handful<\/a>\u00a0of individuals who are able to make it to the court (and secure one of the few seats available to the public) enjoy immediate access. The rest of us must wait until the start of the next term, when the National Archives releases the recordings of oral opinion summaries delivered from the bench.<\/p>\n This delay is unwarranted. Livestreaming opinion announcements, which are already recorded and accessible to the court\u2019s immediate audience, would offer significant benefits with minimal cost. As it prepares to release decisions in high-profile cases involving\u00a0tax benefits<\/a>\u00a0for religious organizations,\u00a0age-verification<\/a>\u00a0requirements for online sexual material, and\u00a0parents\u2019 objections<\/a>\u00a0to their children being exposed to LGBTQ-themed books in public schools, not to mention\u00a0CASA<\/em>, the court should extend its livestreaming policy to include the justices\u2019 delivery of these opinions from the bench, giving the public direct access to some of the most meaningful moments in national civic life.<\/p>\n First, livestreaming opinion announcements would reflect the presumption of openness in legal proceedings. As Don Willett, a federal appeals court judge, wrote in a 2021\u00a0opinion<\/a>, in our republic, \u201cthe default expectation is transparency \u2014 that what happens in the halls of government happens in public view\u201d \u2013 or at least, I might add, in public earshot. A court proceeding is inherently a public affair, and the announcement of judicial opinions to a public audience is all the more so. Stowing the recordings away until the next term contradicts the public-serving function of announcing opinions and wrongly deprives the people of insight into the workings of an immensely powerful governmental institution.\u00a0<\/p>\n True, the court\u2019s written opinion becomes available on the court\u2019s website right away. But a written text fails to capture the communicative aspects of tone, cadence, and demeanor in a justice\u2019s delivery. Oral argument transcripts are an incomplete substitute for the audio broadcasts; the same is true of opinions.\u00a0Consider<\/a>\u00a0Justice Hugo Black \u201c[t]rembling with rage and shaking his finger at the courtroom audience\u201d while orally dissenting in\u00a0Brown\u00a0v.\u00a0Louisiana<\/a><\/em>, or Justice John Paul Stevens\u00a0speaking<\/a>\u00a0\u201cin a slow, halting voice, periodically getting tangled up in thickets of words like \u2018corporation\u2019 and \u2018corruption\u2019\u201d during his oral dissent in\u00a0Citizens United\u00a0<\/em><\/a>v.\u00a0<\/a>FEC<\/em><\/a>. These nonverbal signals matter. They capture the nature of justices\u2019 sentiments in a way that written words do not.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even the very act of delivering an oral opinion carries symbolic significance. On opinion release days, the author of the majority opinion announces the court\u2019s decision and reads a summary of the ruling, but the justices generally do not read their concurrences or dissents. When a justice does choose to read a separate opinion, it may indicate that the justice considers the case particularly important or believes that the majority has gone seriously astray.<\/p>\n Moreover, oral summaries do not follow the written opinions verbatim. In\u00a0Miranda\u00a0v.\u00a0Arizona<\/a><\/em>, for instance, Chief Justice Earl Warren\u00a0departed<\/a>\u00a0from his prepared text to praise police officers \u201cwhen their services are honorably performed.\u201d And in\u00a0Parents Involved in Community Schools<\/em><\/a>\u00a0v.\u00a0<\/a>Seattle School District No. 1<\/em><\/a>, Justice Stephen Breyer\u2019s oral dissent\u00a0included<\/a>\u00a0a biting line that appeared nowhere in his written text: \u201cIt is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much.\u201d These unwritten remarks are most relevant at the moment of delivery, as the justice is actively framing a new development in the law.\u00a0<\/p>\n Requiring the public to hear such statements vicariously, or else months later, does a disservice to both justices and the public. It needlessly hampers judicial transparency with none of the usual concerns over national security or party confidentiality that might justify limiting public access.<\/p>\n Opponents of live-streaming opinion announcements might marshal the same claims once deployed against live-streaming arguments: namely, that it could\u00a0\u201cadversely affect\u201d<\/a>\u00a0the proceedings by changing the justices\u2019 behavior. But years of experience with live-streaming arguments have diminished the force of these speculations, and as things stand, the justices are already announcing their opinions to a room of spectators and media. Live-streaming would only expand the audience; it would be a difference in scope rather than substance.\u00a0<\/p>\n In\u00a0The Federalist<\/em>\u00a0no. 84, Alexander Hamilton\u00a0addressed<\/a>\u00a0fears that the distance between the national capital and much of the population would inhibit informed public participation. The same problem, Hamilton argued, already existed within each state: the benefit of \u201cpersonal observation\u201d was \u201cconfined to the citizens on the spot\u201d of state capitals, leaving everyone else to \u201cdepend on the information of intelligent men, in whom they confide.\u201d Back then, most Americans faced a dichotomous choice: either travel at great expense to the seat of government or settle for secondhand accounts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Today, we have a third option. Real-time audio broadcasting lets Americans witness governance without the need for an onerous journey to D.C. The highest court in the country should take full advantage of this change. There is no sensible reason to deny we the people the opportunity to listen to what our court has to say to us all.<\/p>\n Posted in Featured<\/a>, Focus on court reform<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRecommended Citation:<\/strong> Kit Beyer is a researcher and writer at Fix the Court, a nonprofit that advocates for greater transparency and accountability in the federal judiciary. Please note that SCOTUS Outside Opinions constitute the views of outside contributors and do not\u00a0necessarily\u00a0reflect the opinions of SCOTUSblog or its staff. On the morning of May 15, national attention converged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":271231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,96731],"tags":[24668,410,18064,21046,2835],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-271230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-focus-on-court-reform","tag-announcements","tag-court","tag-livestream","tag-opinion","tag-supreme"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKit Beyer,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Supreme Court should livestream opinion announcements<\/em>,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSCOTUSblog<\/span> (Jun. 3, 2025, 11:26 AM),
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\thttps:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/2025\/06\/the-supreme-court-should-livestream-opinion-announcements\/\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"