|
FirstQuaker -> RE: Supreme Court Coverage and Health Care (11/19/2011 6:33:40 PM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady
For most people, simply watching is never going to give them an understanding, no matter how many times televising it is allowed.
Think about this:
Are you familiar with every case they are going to cite? Considering we can only guess at this point, and most people don't have full access to those cases or know how to find them, you need to be able to research to even think about guessing. Contrary to popular belief, you can't just type the question in legal format and get it off of Google. Some cases will turn up that way, but not all, and not the most recent.
Reading those citations that are going to be would literally take you hours, if not days. They will contain other citations that may be necessary to read to understand the one you started with. Some of it will read like a story, and then other parts will be so wound up in citations and various statutes, even the heads of people with a legal education will be spinning as they decifer them.
Now I never said I thought any reporter should be able to watch the proceedings and report back, since they fit into the above category. However, if the legal analysts for the stations, universities and such are given the opportunity, they can explain it either in a newscast or in written form. Those that really want to learn, not just bitch about things they don't understand, would then have the time to read the documents and learn to understand them. In the meantime, the public has qualified people explaining it to them in a way they can understand. Highlights of pertinent portions could be shown, followed by explanations of what they said and the ramifications that come from that.
Another thing is that while the Supreme Court is going to hear oral arguments, they aren't making a decision right away, that won't come until a month or two down the road, and that will come in written form, the parties aren't going to be called back in for an oral decision. So people will sit and watch what will amount to about eight hours of attorneys presenting their various arguments to the justices, the justices may or may not ask questions along the way. Then the justices will ponder the arguments and discuss it amongst themselves which is NEVER going to be televised, nor should it. They will come to a decision, dictate it to a stenographer who will get them the translation back for review and then the decision will be announced. By the time all this happens, who is really going to remember the arguments put forth a couple months before?
Something else to ponder....why do you think the justices take time to make their decision? It isn't laziness or a show of power. It is that they want to read the transcripts of the arguments given to them so they can weigh their decision carefully. They will go look up the citations themselves. Do you really think that the justices have the details of all those citations in their head all the time? Of course not. Sure they may have reviewed the ones that have been cited prior to the oral argument, but then they want to re-read them and see how well they support the oral argument.
If the justices need to take that kind of time to thoroughly understand the issues, and they are considered among the greatest legal minds we have, honestly, do you think Joe Public can listen to those same arguments on television and form a logical conclusion?
I am likely the wrong person to use as an example. as from the late 1970's I functioned as a paralegal for one aspect of civil rights litigation an even ran a law library supportoing such activities for several years.
"Shepardizing" cases, and summarizing the case law on any given issue is thus pretty easy for me, and is pretty easy to learn and teach others to do. Once you understand the nuts and bolts of how the system works on either side of the border it isn't that hard. Most such legwork is not done by lawyers, but by their underlings in the law offices.
But anyone here can go read up on anything they wonder about in things like Corpus Juris Secundum (or the C.E.D. north of the border) and get a good enough understanding to know what the legal thieves are going on about.
But then we were taught about the Canadian version of the legal system and what the common law was in school in the government class at the rural provincial schools back in the day, and the US version is actually easier to navigate. I am kinda shocked the Ontario residents apparently did not get this in their schools. As far as I know it is taught in many USAsian high schools, too, I had to help one of my daughters with her homework on the matter years ago..
And usually it is the SCOTUS law clerks actually doing the legwork, they send their flunky's out to research the cases, just like a law firm does. And often these underlings write much of the opinions too. Many legal wonk commentators could likely tell you which law clerk or clerks were doing the work by what they see the SCOTUS saying in their opinions.
So I don't see this vast ignorance among the public, since most high schools, and certainly anyone taking any political science college courses should have a working knowlege of the legal system, and thus have the knowledge to go look into any legal matters that interest them.
But then this "individual mandate"" case has enough contraversy and issues on either side of the matter as to be a major landmark case, even the partisan legal wonks see two sides to the issue and how it can go either way.
In summary, I think anyone interested enough to be watching this battle of the titans for 5 some hours will be interested enough to go spend a modest amount of time and effort researching the issues first.
|
|
|
|
