Home > Journals > Michigan Law Review > MLR FI > Vol. 106
Abstract
Cameras are an understandable yet inapt target for Supreme Court Justices apprehensive about televising the high Court’s proceedings. Notwithstanding Justice Souter’s declaration to a congressional subcommittee in 1996 that cameras will have to roll over his dead body to enter the Court, the Justices’ public statements suggest that their objections are to televising—not to cameras. In fact, welcoming cameras to video record Court proceedings for archival purposes will serve the Justices’ interests well. Video recording can forestall legislation recently introduced in both houses of Congress that would require the Court to televise its proceedings. The Court’s desired result—the legislation disappearing from the congressional agenda—will become more plausible once the Justices have acknowledged legislators’ legitimate arguments for improving access to the Court. When initiating video recording, however, the Justices can allay the concerns they have expressed about televising by strictly limiting the distribution of the archival footage.
Recommended Citation
Scott C. Wilcox,
Granting Certiorari to Video Recording but Not to Televising,
106
Mich. L. Rev. First Impressions
24
(2007).
Available at:
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr_fi/vol106/iss1/25
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