Legal News

Ginsburg talks about television and the high court

By (Breaking Legal News)

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says television has profoundly changed confirmation hearings but declined to say whether she'd oppose televising arguments.

Ginsburg told a Colorado judicial conference Friday that TV has made Supreme Court confirmation hearings much longer because senators posture for cameras.

"The people on the Senate Judiciary Committee have all that free time" to stump for the audience, Ginsburg said.

Ginsburg demurred, however, on the question of televising arguments before the high court. She talked about former justices who opposed cameras.

Without naming anyone currently on the court, Ginsburg said, "When you're sitting on a collegial bench, if there is any of you who would be extremely discomforted ... you would defer to that colleague."

Ginsburg talked to several hundred judges gathered for a judicial conference of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court. The justice delivered a speech written by her recently deceased husband, Martin Ginsburg. Martin Ginsburg, a prominent lawyer in his own right, was originally scheduled to address the gathering and prepared the remarks before his death from cancer in June.

After reading the speech, she Ginsburg joined the chief jurist of Canada's Supreme Court, Beverly McLachlin, in a question-and-answer session.

Full post as published by Breaking Legal News on August 30, 2010 (boomark / email).