Which SCOTUS Opening Argument Do You Wish You Could Have Witnessed?
Georgetown University law student Mike Sacks has a blog and a plan: To be first in line at the U.S. Supreme Court the night before “every politically salient case from January through April,” report from the line, and cover oral arguments via Twitter and posts at First One @ One First that will be cross-posted on ABAJournal.com. (Two oral arguments posts have gone up already: Lewis v. City of Chicago and Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project.)
Sacks says on his blog that his idea came from his interest in getting inside the heads of the others camping out in line for hours to get into oral arguments. “No Supreme Court reporters ever ask the courtroom’s spectators why they have congregated inside the temple of our civil religion,” Sacks writes in his first post. “What does the person in line at 5 a.m. hope to see in this case? Why is the family that shows up at 9 a.m. hoping to get in?”
This week, we want you to channel your inner SCOTUS geek and tell us: Which Supreme Court opening argument do you wish you could have witnessed? Cases that were heard before your lifetime count, as do scheduled hearings that have yet to take place.
Answer in the comments below.
Read the answers to last week’s question: Would Your Kid Mischief Have You Facing Suspension—or Police—Today?
Featured answer:
Posted by Good Little Girl / Principal’s Daughter: “I was the high school principal’s daughter and never dared to do anything I thought would get me in trouble. When people brought pocketknives to school, my dad would of course confiscate them. He brought some home and, when we were old enough to use them in Girl Scouts (I was probably about 9), he let us pick some out (the small ones). I fell in love with a pretty little white pearlized one, and I recall bringing it to school on several occasions and showing my friends. I thought nothing of it—it was for Girl Scouts, and I had no malicious thought, much less intent. I probably even carved bark off sticks on the playground. Other kids brought these too. I wasn’t caught, but today I would have probably made the national news as a 9-year-old terrorist.”
