to america's highest court the honorable the chief justice and the associate justices of the supreme court of the united states something different is going on here than what goes on in the capitol building or in the white house and you need to appreciate how important it is to our system of government this is the highest court in the land and the framers created it after studying the great law givers in history the government concedes that the destruction of documents in anticipation of a proceeding why these cases are very close and you go in on the knife's edge you don't sit here to make the law to decide who ought to win we decide who wins under the law that the people have adopted you will be surprised by the high level of collegiality here if there are four of the nine of us who want to hear any of these cases we'll hear it we're here to decide things the job is to decide we decide we cannot have a decision of this court this court decides important questions and that means you you have to do your best to get it right and you have to work as hard as you can to get it right why is it that we have an elegant astonishingly beautiful imposing impressive structure it's to remind us that we have an important function and to remind the public when it sees the building of the importance and the centrality of the law it always thrills me amazes me and gives me faith in our country to know how much people trust the courts i think the danger is that sometimes you could come into a building like this and think it's all about you or that you're important and that is something that i don't think works well with this job [Music] home to america's highest court the role of those who serve here is to interpret the constitution of the united states outside almost daily expressions of protests are made by those wishing the court to take up their case or rule in their favor and inside a central space dominates its proceedings all around there are both public spaces containing the symbolism of the law and artwork reminding us of those that have served on the court before as well as beautiful private rooms that are seen by those privileged few but it is the justices appointed for life terms who have always defined this legal but very human institution and the building in which they do their work [Music] i think it's the prettiest building in washington and it's distinctive it's a different type of marble just to start with much brighter much lighter than the typical government building which i think is wonderful because it right immediately as soon as you see it you appreciate that this is something different it represents that the court is a different branch of government and it really is more monumental it looks a lot more like the jefferson memorial or the lincoln memorial in terms of its visual impact than it does look like another government building and if you view it as something of a temple of justice i think that's entirely appropriate when you first come up with the steps from the sidewalk up onto the plaza or four court there are two candelabra on either side of the first set of stairs and they actually have one of your first symbols which is a blindfolded justice holding uh scales of justice on the other parts of that base of that candelabra are the three fates so it's the first symbolic indication that this building has something to do with the law and then as you travel up onto the plaza there are the two flagpole bases which also have some symbols of law and knowledge indicating that the building has a purpose which is the supreme court and the law the statue to the left is contemplation of justice in her right hand she holds a smaller statue of blindfolded justice blindfolded justice is a symbol of impartiality [Music] on the right hand side of the staircase the other statue is authority of law [Music] his left arm rests on a book with the latin term lex meaning law it's important for the justices it's important for the attorneys it's important for the public to make sure that people always want to come up these steps because we're doing the job the right way and we not a day goes by where we must not ask ourselves are we doing this job the right way i think the supreme court is the most mysterious branch to the public they do their work in a marble building where cameras aren't allowed they are not recognizable generally to the average person on the street and then they speak to the public through their opinions so in some ways they're very public because anything that they do that will matter in your life will be down on black and white in a court opinion but yet they themselves will not be publicly announcing that before a camera so there is a real mystery to the supreme court its proper role is in a democracy to give a fair and honest interpretation to the meaning of dispositions that the people have adopted either congress in statutes or the people when they ratify the constitution simple as that no more no less i think it is time that americans wake up to what it is the framers had in mind when they tried to create an independent federal judicial branch they had a clear vision in mind and that was that the federal courts would be deciding issues of federal law constitutional and statutory and that those judgments would be binding on all courts state and federal when the court tries to do that job questions which sometimes members of the court disagree about and disagree strongly about but i think we're all trying to do the same thing which is to look at the law that exists the constitution the statutes to figure out what it means and to apply and enforce it what the public will see eventually is an opinion with reasons the discipline that a judge follows and what makes judges unlike legislatory tours we don't just say i vote that the petitioner should win or i wrote the respondent should win we have to give reasons for every decision we make when you go in for a big case that's one with high visibility where the stakes are really large where you can feel the tectonic plates of the constitution actually beginning or potentially beginning to shift then you would just be brutish if you didn't have an awareness or a high level of sensitivity uh to the to the importance of that moment the court is very much aware of history the place is one where continuity is very important and history really does influence the way the court works at the top of the west steps are the symbolic bronze doors which recognize the history of the law and this court just on the other side is the ceremonial core of the building there is an impressive marble hall that separates the front door of the building from the doors that lead into the courtroom that marble hall is called the great hall it's characterized by marble columns often when i go home at night the building is vacant and i walk through the great hall and i look around at the pillars and it really impresses upon me the importance of the work that we're doing as many times as i've walked through that hall it never ceases to to have that impression on me between the columns are busts of chief justices as you walk from the beginning and you can see john marshall [Music] tawny up to taft charles evans hughes earl warren [Music] at present there are busts of all of the chief justices in a certain sense you're walking through the whole history of the court the story of the court is defined not only by its different chiefs over time but also through continual editions of new associate justices to the bench the white house operator tells you that the president is on the line i had the my cell phone in my right hand and i had my left hand over my chest trying to calm my beating heart literally and the presidents got on the phone and said to me judge i would like to announce you as my selection to be the next associate justice of the united states supreme court and i said to him i caught my breath and started to cry and said thank you mr president judge sotomayor are you prepared to take the oath i am please raise your right hand and repeat after me i sonia sotomayor do solemnly swear i sonia sotomayor do solemnly swear justice white uh always used to say when the court gets a new member it changes everything changes everybody um change simple changes we move the seats around uh in the courtroom uh their seats are by order of seniority so there'll be a shift there the same in the uh in the conference room but more fundamentally i think it can cause you to take a fresh look at how things are decided the new member is going to have a particular view about how issues should be addressed that may be very different from what we've we've been following for some time so it's an exciting part of life at the court oh the institution doesn't change at all i think i think the relationships change you you lose a friend and hopefully acquire another one i miss a lot of my former colleagues on the court from byron white to bill brennan but that's that's the process they they go and new people come on it's different it's different today than what it was when i first got here and i have to admit you grow very fond of the court that you spent a long time on there was a period there with chief justice rehnquist and justice o'connor when we had gone we had a long run together and you get comfortable with that and then it changes and now it's changing again it's a new court when i was trying a jury case it was usually 12 if a juror had to be replaced uh because one was ill or something i don't know it was just a different dynamic it was a different jury and it's the same way here this will be a very different court and it's stressful for us because we so admire our colleagues we wonder oh will it ever be the same but i have great admiration for the system the system works i think it's healthy for the court to have members with different backgrounds i think i think there's i saw a television program recently when somebody said there should always be someone who had served in the armed forces on the court i think there should always be someone who's who has had practical experience in litigation and i think experience in other branches of the government such as the legislatures would be very very helpful i think that the experiences that that i have brought to the job are going to uh to help me a good deal and being solicitor general you uh you get to see the court uh in everything it does just from a different point of view from the point of view of the advocate rather than than than the judge but it's been a whirlwind it's sort of drinking out of a fire hose you know it's always something new something different a lot to learn the the the learning curve is extremely steep sometimes it seems vertical all of my colleagues have been extraordinarily warm and welcoming each one of them has offered advice each one of them has invited me to call them with questions and i don't know if there's i can identify anyone in particular that i've been turning to actually it depends a great deal on whether i'm meeting them in the hall because there's always a question on my mind and when i meet them in the hall i just go up to them and say can you or would you and they've each been delightfully generous in giving me time to walk me through whatever it is that i'm asking about from its first chief justice john jay to its current one john roberts the court continues to make decisions that impact the lives of everyday americans taking on only a limited amount of cases per term compared to the number of those requested of them eight thousand ask us each year to hear the case that means about 150 a week 150 what 150 requests to hear the case well here they are for this week i think undoubtedly the [Music] to my mind the most what should i say onerous and for the most part on interest an interesting part of the job is uh ruling on all of the cert petitions that come to the court and they've increased enormously in the time that i've been here it's an interesting process we don't try to just you know look at the cases that we think are wrong we don't look at the cases that we think have a lot at stake our main job is to try to make sure federal law is uniform across the country all the cases are hard the only reason we take them as some of my colleagues may tell you is that other courts are in disagreement most of the time and that means that other judges and other actors in the legal system have come to differing conclusions every case is that way most people think they have a right to come to the court for the most part you don't not this court maybe the court of appeals you normally do the maybe the state courts of appeal and final the courts that don't have discretionary jurisdiction the the courts of last resort maybe they have a right to go to those but here most of our jurisdiction is discretionary in other words we decide if you come you can tell if there's a case that's on a particular hot button issue that people are going to give it a lot of attention but i have to say that doesn't enter into our process of deciding a lot of our docket is very mundane you go through the year and say we're deciding 90 cases probably a half dozen are ones that are going to make it to the front page of the newspaper all the others you know bankruptcy tax case and a federal arbitration act case a pension plan case those are actually a big part of our docket all vitally important but not anything that's going to attract any interest even a case on a subject that you think of as kind of boring can turn out to be enormously challenging at the end of the day it could be anything so uh i don't think subject matter determines the extent of your interest in it it's the challenge of solving this particular question of law and making it work it could be on any subject each one gets a vote just like anything else on what cases we should hear but it only takes four votes to grant certain and decide that we're going to hear a case the court used to have a lot more mandatory jurisdiction cases they had to hear and when they got congress to pass a law saying that we didn't have to hear all the cases it wasn't mandatory jurisdiction kind of the deal we made with the hill was you didn't need five votes to hear a case four would be enough these are the cases in justice stephen breyer's office that were granted and heard in the courtroom behind the scenes each justice has their own suite of offices here they work with a staff of four law clerks and several office assistants but it is within their own chambers where their personalities and work habits come through i like to be in a quiet place i like to have my law clerks close at hand in my regular chambers all of the law clerks were in inside chambers now i have two that are in that office and two down the hall but i like a quiet place i'm glad to be overlooking the courtyard and not the front of the building so i'm not disturbed by demonstrators this desk is made here at the court all of the chambers have similar desks the variation in these chambers is that i have put a granite top on the desk i was very lucky to have this office it was harry blackman's office he was my predecessor here it's a lovely office and i think the year before ruth ginsburg was appointed and everybody moved because you obtain offices by by seniority really and i was the most junior but then when i was appointed no one wanted to move i said that's fine with me i was lucky it is this view from justice breyer's chambers that provides a window into the past of the supreme court meeting in the basement of the capitol for the majority of their time between 1810 and 1860 john marshall oversaw the court from here during his tenure and later roger tani ruled over the chamber as well until the court moved upstairs into a space vacated by the senate where they would meet until 1935 but with very little space available in the building for justices to do their work and with even less for attorneys to find a place to prepare for oral argument one chief justice determined it was time the court have a building of its own i don't think it's an understatement to say that this building would not be here if it hadn't been for the persistence of chief justice taft taft had in mind that the court needed to have a building of its own he believed that when he was president and when he became chief justice it became almost an obsession there was some opposition in congress but ultimately taft began to chair the committee that was to choose the architect gilbert was very much the first choice that taft had in mind cass gilbert was one of the best known architects of his time and so it was the perfect match of architect and and employer their idea was to have a building that would comport to jefferson's concepts and that would look right next to the capitol building but still stand on its own the appropriation the taft asked for was a little bit less than 10 million dollars during the great depression there was actually a deflation and so they were able to build the building and furnish it and still turn a hundred thousand dollars back to the treasury of the united states so it came in under budget maybe the only government building in history that came in under budget gilbert thought he had done such a great job that the u.s capital should be moved so that people would have a better view of the court that was his view and i think he did create a beautiful building but there's no way the capital is going to be moved to provide a better view gilbert worked in in what is essentially a sort of french bozar classicism he was very serious in his intention to to create a a house and a symbolic house for the third branch of government that expressed the seriousness of what we were doing the authority with which the third branch should be invested and an authority really to work for what was right supreme court justices are not shy and some of the justices felt that the new building was too grand was too grandiose chief justice stone is alleged to have said that the justices were like nine black beetles in the temple of carmack and that maybe they should ride in each morning on elephants setting a record with over 75 million pounds of marble used in its construction when it opened in 1935 seven of the nine sitting justices refused to move into their chambers in the new supreme court building van de vender who was one of the justices at the time who did a lot of work on it didn't want to leave the former chambers which was in the basement of the senate and he said if we leave these offices in the senate no one will ever hear of us again but he was wrong brandeis said he wouldn't come in here and the reason justice brandeis wouldn't come is he said this building is so elaborate it'll go to their heads maybe he was right but it's become over time a symbol of the court system the third branch of government and the need for stability a rule of law which is what america stands for the interesting thing is that neither taft nor gilbert lived to see the building completed gilbert died only a few months before the building actually opened as you look at the building today you not only see the vision of taft and his architect but also the work of taft's successor chief justice charles evans hughes who oversaw its completion and while most visitors see the west plaza of the structure on its east side is a less often viewed part of the building and its pediment above the east portico and plaza of the building is surmounted at the top by the east pediment sculpture by herman mcneill he was given a lot of rain by the architect cass gilbert to design his own ideas for this sculpture and he chose since he was on the eastern side of the building to look toward the eastern traditions of law to choose some of his figures the central figure is moses and then on either side are confucius and salon the greek law giver to either side of those are some allegorical figures that depict various aspects of the law and authority [Music] and the corners on either end are the allegory of the tortoise and the hare and the idea is that the slow pace of justice or the slow pace of the tortoise carries through in the work of the court and will win the day over the fast pace of the air below the impediment is the statement justice the guardian of liberty and that's actually a phrase that charles evans wrote on a memo when they were asked to approve the two inscriptions that were going to be put on the building and he said i'd rather prefer justice the guardian of liberty rather than the one that the architects firm had suggested [Music] on the opposite side of the supreme court is the west plaza the traditional public entrance to the building and also a place where many express their feelings about the court and the constitution i'm not sure gilbert intended it to be a convenient site for protests and i'm pretty sure taft who was heavily involved in the design and architecture of it didn't intend it for that purpose either i understand people having strong feelings about some of the things that we do and we're involved in but it's not a situation where our decisions should be guided by popular pressure and so the protests to some extent are are there as a way for people to express their feelings but not directed shouldn't be directed at us you would not want us deciding what the constitution means based on what the popular feeling is quite often and many of our most famous decisions are ones that the court took that were quite unpopular and the idea that we should yield to what the public protest is is quite foreign to what it means to have a country under the rule of law sitting at the top of the west plaza is the traditional entrance to the supreme court due to ongoing security concerns the court decided in may of 2010 to close the symbolic bronze doors as an entrance while still allowing people to exit the building from here in a statement critical of the decision justice stephen breyer said in part while i recognize the reasons for this change on balance i do not believe they justify it in making this decision it is important not to undervalue the symbolic and historic importance of allowing visitors to enter the court after walking up gilbert's famed front steps as you look up from the steps of the west plaza you see another symbolic pediment this one pays tribute to both the history of the law and to some of those integral in the building's construction what you see in the west pediment are allegorical figures the central figure is liberty enthroned and order and authority flank her on either side [Music] the other figures that are represented in the pediment are those that participated in the construction of the building and also the history of the court the architect is represented chief justice taft is represented as a youth while he attended yale you also have john marshall represented as a young man chief justice hughes is represented even the sculptor robert aitken is represented in that freeze [Music] just under the pediment sculpture are the words equal justice under law it's a phrase devised by the architects and approved by chief justice hughes but the words have taken on a larger meeting since then equal justice under law is really a statement of the fact that judges ought to be independent that the law to be blind in certain respects and not recognize any differences in terms of people's rights based upon their race or their color or their religion or their background and the sense that that communicates is that one can stand before the court and expect to be treated fairly [Music] i don't want legalism i just want the conclusion in a moment the justices on the one hour that could potentially sway them on cases that come before the court it's the first time we learn what our colleagues think about a case and that can alter how you view it right on the spot you have to pick some numbers well actually what the eight is eight percent your honor a lot of these cases are very close and you go in on the knife's edge persuasive counsel can make the difference [Applause] the supreme court home to america's highest court is one of three original documentaries from c-span included in our american icons dvd collection get your copy for 24.95 plus shipping and handling order at cspan.org store and for more information about the supreme court including a virtual tour of the building the justices in their own words a photo gallery on the construction of the supreme court building and an interactive timeline on the history of the court go to cspan.org supreme court the c-span networks we provide coverage of politics public affairs non-fiction books and american history it's all available to you on television radio online and on social media networking sites and find our content anytime through c-span's video library and we take c-span on the road with our digital bus and local content vehicle bringing our resources to your community it's washington your way the c-span networks now available in more than 100 million homes created by cable provided as a public service we return now to c-span's feature documentary the supreme court home to america's highest court the supreme court hears between 80 and 100 cases each term inside this building that was opened in 1935 and envisioned by chief justice william howard taft in what the architect called the central node of the structure the courtroom was adorned with red drapes and special columns made of marble imported from italy and spain but taft's wish called for more than just a new courtroom just outside this space are rooms added to help both the justices and attorneys prepare for oral argument in the lawyers lounge the clerk of the court and usually the deputy clerk come in and they give practical pointers they try hard to put people at ease it's a fun place to be before going into the courtroom because there's a lot of camaraderie in there you get to meet your opposing counsel if you haven't met them already it's it's friendly a lot of nervous energy in there but it but it is friendly it's designed to calm lawyers down who are doing their arguments for the first time to make certain that they're not faux pas that they don't tell jokes or attempt to tell jokes during their oral arguments or not refer to their familiarity with one of the justices and that indeed they will survive the experience and they ought to see it as a place where they can make their best case and the court will hear them and they'll get a fair decision we want them to enter that courtroom prepared and ready and both sides have an equal chance at winning the case the attorneys are instructed to be there at 9 15 in the morning and the the regulars all know to be there and come there sometimes they don't know each other you don't know your opponent it might be new york and california this is a national court so it's not just a bunch of attorneys who all hang around the same courthouse a little different from that they exchange greetings they're all glad to see each other they take their seats go over the events that are going to occur that day let them know if opinions are coming down how many motions for admission the absences of any justices who might be recused answer any questions they might have and offer them cough drops aspirin anything like that that they might need to make them feel more comfortable and the attorney of feedback i've gotten over the years is they like it very much as the attorneys get their last minute instructions before entering the courtroom the justices are preparing for the experience in their own way first of all on days of oral argument a bell or buzzer is sounded in each chambers of a justice about 10 minutes ahead reminding you that in 10 minutes you're supposed to be on the bench at that point you need to go down to the roping room to get your robe on and be ready to go into the courtroom at the appointed hour chief justices don't like to be late as you can imagine into the courtroom and the roving room just has a number of narrow little sections of a larger cabinet in which the justice's robe or robes are hung and your judicial collar if you have one it can be on the shelf you know the standard robe is made for a man because it has a place for the shirt to show and tie so sandra day o'connor and i thought it would be appropriate if we included it as part of our robe something typical of a woman so i have many many collars i'm sure we could do our work without the roads we could do our work without this glorious building what the robes like the building uh impart to the people who come here is the uh significance the importance of what goes on here i think that that's a profound symbol that kind of plain black robe that says i'm going to try to the extent i can not to be guided by any personal experiences or personal characteristics but to apply the law in the fairest way i think as possible those traditions anchor us in a process that's greater than ourselves they remind us that the role that we're playing is not a personal role that and not a role that should have a personal agenda but one that has an institutional importance and that that institutional importance is bigger than us as we enter the robbing room or if we're on the lake side the conference room the first thing we do is we go around the room each justice shaking hands with every other and that's a symbol of the work that we do as a collegial body that is you may be temporarily miffed because you received a spicy descending opinion from a colleague but when we go to sit on the bench we look at each other shake hands and it's a way of saying we're all in this together when all nine are there and accounted for the chief justice says it's time to go and so you line up in order of seniority across the hallway to enter the back of the courtroom and they divide three justices on the left three in the middle and three on the right the honorable the chief justice and the associate justices of the supreme court of the united states oh yeah all persons having business before the honorable the supreme court of the united states would manage to draw near and give their attention for the court is now sitting god save the united states in this honorable court [Music] one of the amazing things about that courtroom despite its splendor is the intimacy of it on the one hand it's not that big a room but the real intimacy comes in the relationship between the lawyer who was arguing at the podium in the court that he's arguing to and if you stop to think of it when you go in there you will see that if one of us leaned over the bench as far as we could lean and the lawyer arguing at the podium leaned toward us we could almost shake hands and that is a very important thing because it means that when the when the arguments take place you are physically and psychologically close enough to each other so that there is a possibility for real engagement we're just not a bunch of people talking in microphones with a big space between us so the the happy paradox of that room is that it is a grand room in which a very intimate process takes place and it is the kernel of a very grand building which has very intimate results for every american the aura of the place is always present this is the chamber where brown versus board of education was decided this is the chamber in which the big steel seizure case was decided the most important decision in our history in defining presidential power was decided in that room by human beings sitting on that bench after having listened to argument by other human beings most cases have an hour per case a half hour per side when you tell that to people they think is that all and when you look at some of the other common law jurisdictions they have a lot more but a lot of the argument's been laid out in writing lawyers are not expected and even if they expect to they're not going to have the chance to get up and give a speech a lot of the argument most of the argument is devoted to justice's questions it's very intense that's what it's really like you're seated right next to the podium so you really just stand up and slide over a few inches and the first thing you have to say under court etiquette is mr chief justice and may it please the court the 10th circuit in this case correctly held that stone could not share in the award given by the jury unless and then you're off and then you have to you have a few sentences usually that you have chosen to deliver the court but you will start getting questions you know usually within the first minute or two each of the justices has their own unique style about questioning we have some people who like you know the rapid fire uh style others who like to spin out long hypotheticals i don't want legalism i just want the conclusion that a minute has passed before he says yes has that changed everything and it becomes lawful would you explain again why it was irrelevant whether the gun was operable or not what if in your hypo the the government came along and said in order to run your hospital you've got to disclose certain facts otherwise we're going to shut it down it's the first time we learn what our colleague colleagues think about a case we don't sit down before argument and say this is what we think or this is how i view the case we come to it cold as far as knowing what everybody thinks and so through the questioning we're learning for the first time what the other justices view how they view the case and that can alter how you view it right on the spot and if they're raising questions about an issue that you hadn't thought was important you can start looking into that issue during the questioning a little bit so it's a very dynamic and very exciting part of the job there are nine people up there and i'm with them and we're talking this is a conversation and i really i have no awareness of the courtroom the people in the courtroom any physical movements that may be going on it's really quite remarkable my philosophy is to ask questions when i think the answer might give me a little help in deciding the case i i don't view the the participation as a of a justice as an opportunity for the justice to advocate one point of view i think rather the questioning should be designed to help understand what the arguments on both sides are in order to enable the justice to reach a decision to sit on the supreme court and listen to the questions of your colleagues is somewhat humbling the moment that i sat down and was able to look out and see all of the people in the audience that's probably the moment i will most intensely remember because there were lawyers who i've known for years sitting at the table in front of us ready to argue but then watching the intensity of everyone's face and i'd forgotten how much people believe that believe and know that they're affected by the court's decisions every question i ask has a purpose it has some importance to something that is troubling me or that i'm curious about as an attorney i welcomed questions from the bench i know that some lawyers regard questions as an interruption in in an eloqua speech that they are preparing prepared to make but an advocate wants to know what's on the judge's mind so she will welcome questions as a way of satisfying the judge on a matter that the judge might not resolve as well without counsel's response it's all about just fielding those questions and using the time strategically so that you respond to the questions it's essential to answer the questions you can't persuade a justice if you don't answer what they have asked they're very demanding as they should be that's that's their job it's a very challenging exercise is 2 a critical mass miss mahoney i don't think so your honor uh four percent uh no your honor what you have to pick some numbers well actually what the eight is eight percent your honor does it stop being a quota because it's somewhere between eight and and twelve but it is a quota if it's ten a lot of people uh have the impression that it's just a dog and pony show what can somebody tell me in half an hour that's going to make a difference and the answer is that it is it is probably quite rare although not unheard of that oral argument will change my mind but it is quite common that i go in with my mind not made up i mean a lot of these cases are very close and you go in on the knife's edge persuasive counsel can make the difference i once had an argument where i think they asked 56 questions in 30 minutes so it's a lot of questions and yes they they interrupt each other even it had been my practice on the court of appeals to try to wait for sort of the end of the lawyer's paragraph before interrupting with the question and here i learned if you do that or even if you in a in a hot case if you and wait till the end of a sentence you will never get a question in you have to be you have to interrupt to to make your voice heard the argument is is for us to say well yeah we've read your brief we know what you think of the case but here are the questions that that inspired in us you know here are the concerns we have or here are the uncertainties that you left open and and use oral argument in order to do that i guess i view oral argument a little bit differently i think it's an opportunity for the advocate on the lawyers to fill in the blanks i think it's hard to have a conversation when nobody's listening when you can't complete sentences or answers perhaps that's a southern thing i don't know but i think you should allow people to complete their answers and their thought and to continue their conversation i find that that coherence that you get from a conversation far more helpful than the rapid fire questions i don't see how you can learn a whole lot when there are 50 questions and a half in an hour one of the bad signs of an oral argument is when the questions stop it means that you know you've either not persuaded them or they they figured it out already and there's nothing more you can add a white light will go on when you have five minutes remaining and when your time is expired a red light goes on when the red light goes on you are supposed to stop it's an exciting part of the process i'm going to learn what my colleagues think about a case that i've been studying for a long time for the very first time i'm going to hear what the lawyers have to say so it's an exciting day sometimes i say to myself am i really there or is it all a dream it's one of the most beautiful courtrooms i think in the world there's a hush that comes over people as they walk in there's a reverence that this is an important space people then look up and they see around the top of the courtroom there's an extended panel of sculptural freeze there's four panels in the freeze above the courtroom the one in the back is a story of the allegorical story of the battle of good versus evil and in the center of this is justice and she's leaning on her sword it's sheathed but it's ready she's ready for action if needed to protect the forces of good from the forces of evil among the forces of evil are despotic power slander and corruption the forces of good on the other side are the defense of virtue and charity and peace behind justice is a figure of divine inspiration which is holding the scales of justice in her hand out of that you have this procession of the great law givers it starts with an egyptian pharaoh meneze who at the time was thought to be the earliest log ever known in the history of mankind he's followed by other figures such as moses holding the ten commandments octavian some of the ancient greek and roman law givers like hergis salon and then on the other side you come into more modern times you have justinian known for the justinian code king john with the magna carta and finally the most recent one napoleon now most people wouldn't think of napoleon as someone you'd know for the law but he was instrumental in creating the civil code which is now used basically as in many of the european countries it ends in that last figure where you have the majesty of law and the power of government sitting on a throne with the tablet of the ten amendments to the constitution the bill of rights right in the center with american eagle spreading its wings behind there and on one side you have a group of citizens and they're protected by a lawyer or a judge he's in a robe and he's holding a book of laws and on the other side you have another group of citizens and there's a warrior in front of those there's the authority of the law but then you need to have the strength to back up what the law needs to be enforced by it's amazing when you walk in and of how fixed in time it is even the two american flags that flank the mahogany bench that they all sit at hang perfectly still the supreme court is imbuing great tradition in fact we sometimes kid that the quill pens that they give to the oral advocates are exactly how they write their opinions and there are some justices who still write out their opinions in longhand on a legal pad rather than type at a computer the way most people would do today [Music] the supreme court rich with traditions is also a very human institution in a private room reserved for use by the justices a newer custom takes place following oral arguments one encouraged by its first female justice it is a beautiful room very well furnished but the food is not exactly oat cuisine it comes from the public cafeteria the justice he eat same things that any visitor to the court might choose for lunch you will be surprised by the high level of collegiality here justice scalia once commented that in his early years on this court there was no justice with whom he disagreed more often than justice brennan and yet justice scalia considered justice brennan his best friend on the court at that time and he thought the feeling was reciprocated this is a tradition eating lunch together that was really pushed by justice o'connor when she was on the court and it stuck justice o'connor insisted that we have lunch every day when we were sitting now clarence you should come to lunch and she was really sweet but very persistent and i came to lunch as one of the best things i did it is hard to be angry or bitter at someone and break bread and look them in the eye it is a fun lunch very little work is done there it's just nine people eight people whoever shows up having a wonderful lunch together it is wonderful i try not to miss a post-argument lunch because you never know what my colleagues will be talking about usually on an argument day most of the justices are there in our dining room and it is the rule there that we don't talk about the cases my colleagues who go to the opera will talk about the opera some of us will talk about the the baseball game or or the golf tournament somebody will talk about a good movie uh they've seen or a good book they've read what's something particularly interesting their families doing the kind of things everybody would talk about at lunch with colleagues [Music] off the main justices dining room is a smaller dining room for smaller functions known as the john marshall dining room and that's due to a sculpture that was placed there in the mid-1970s of john marshall chief justice warren burger decided that he wanted to make that the theme of the room and so the court had been donated a portrait of william marbury and marbury was the famous litigant in the case of marbury versus madison back in 1803. chief justice burger said we need to get a companion portrait for that and so the great litigants marbury versus madison are on the wall literally of this small dining room marbury in madison is probably the most famous case this court ever decided the idea of judicial review for constitutionality i think is implicit in the constitutional document but john marshall made it explicit in the great case of marbury against madison in all of the supreme court's history there is no one case that says as much to a justice about what it is like to be a justice because marbury versus madison is is the embodiment of judicial review there's no quotation in all of the history of supreme court writing that justices more prefer to repeat than the phrase which says it is emphatically the power and the duty of the judiciary to say what the law is that's a quote from john marshall in barbary versus madison call him the great chief he really was the first person to take the job seriously he really established the court uh in a prominent position as one of the three co-equal branches of government the chief's responsibility is to preside at oral arguments and also to preside at the conference where the justices vote on and decide the cases that means i get to initiate the discussion and have some responsibility to make sure that all the issues are adequately aired at conference there is a change when the new chief justice is presiding at conference but each each chief justice has his own ways method of handling and presiding at the conference and the president chief justice is doing an excellent job and it has some virtues that the others didn't have and but but that's pretty much follows the tradition that's been followed for many years on the one hand there's not much the chief justice can do the his uh eight associate justices have a lifetime job they have a duty to uphold the constitution uh he he can't fire him he's got to get along with them we have traditions which will outlast any chief justice and so the chief justice comes to a court where there are these elements of stability and permanence and protection and we and we have our tradition and we have our oath on the other hand the chief justice who presides is over our conference and steers us through the mechanics of hearing the cases and calendars by his personality and his warmth and his decisiveness and his understanding of the law and of the institution of his colleagues can do a great deal to set the tone when i got here my colleagues were very helpful in filling me in on how things worked often in contradictory ways but you do get some sense about what's expected in the process and then you go in and do it and hold your breath and hope they all don't say it once well what are you talking about why are you doing that and the real key is that my eight colleagues were extraordinarily helpful in making me feel very comfortable um i mean imagine it's not just that i was coming in as chief and the youngest among the bunch and many respects the least experienced uh uh as it as a judge but they had been together for 11 years without any change and you can easily imagine that that would be difficult but every one of them i think went out of their way to make me feel comfortable in the process for which i've always been very appreciative a moment go behind the scenes to perhaps the most private and important room in the building where the decisions of the court begin to take shape no one can enter the room who is not a justice no secretary no law clerk not even a message bearer i can still remember the first time i set foot in that room and those doors closed it's pretty dawning the first few times because that's where the actual work and the decision making takes place and for more information about the supreme court including a virtual tour of the building the justices in their own words a photo gallery on the construction of the supreme court building and an interactive timeline on the history of the court go to cspan.org supreme court the supreme court home to america's highest court is one of three original documentaries from c-span included in the american icons dvd collection get your copy for 24.95 plus shipping and handling order at cspan.org store you're watching cspan bringing you politics and public affairs our live call-in program about the news of the day connecting you with elected officials policy makers and journalists during the week watch the us house and our continuing coverage of the transition to the new congress and every weeknight congressional hearings and policy forums also supreme court oral arguments on the weekends you can see our signature interview programs on saturdays the communicators and on sundays newsmakers q a and prime minister's questions from the british house of commons you can also watch our programming anytime at cspan.org and it's all searchable at our c-span video library c-span washington your way a public service created by america's cable companies we return now to c-span's feature documentary the supreme court home to america's highest court in the most private and perhaps important place inside the supreme court nine justices and only them meet together around a table in the justices conference room they discuss the cases heard at oral argument and begin the process of reaching a decision of the court we sit at the conference table in the same places every day i sit at one end and then it wraps around the table in order of the seniority i can still remember the first time i set foot in that room and those doors closed my goodness it's it's pretty dawning the first few times because that's where the actual work and the decision-making takes place we don't have any observers in the conference room no one can enter the room who is not a justice no secretary no law clerk not even a message bearer i have to be uh professional and accurate and fair and each of my colleagues feels the same way so there's a little tension and excitement in the room but we love it we're we're designed to do that the job is no good if you can't argue i initiate the discussion um for an argued case they'll say this case is about this the arguments are so and so and i think we should reverse or affirm and here's why sometimes in an easy case it will take you know a minute in a hard case it can can take a lot longer now one of the best rules and i think it's true for any group the rule of that conference is no one speaks twice until everyone has spoken once because i was most junior so it helped me but i think it's a very good rule it produces a very good feeling because everyone feels that he's been heard it's great to go first because you can tell the rest in in a persuasive statement what you think of the case but when you're on the end of that cue you do have a certain advantage that is you know what the others think it is not really a an exercise in in persuading each other it's an exercise in stating your views and the rest of us take notes and that's its function you take notes so that if you get assigned the opinion you know how to write it in a way that will get at least four other votes besides your own i was the most junior member of this court for 11 years and it was always when we had our conferences since no one else is the room was in the room i had the special job of opening the door in case somebody knocked you know somebody knocked usually somebody forgot a paper once they had coffee for justice scalia i said well i've been doing this for 10 years and he said and i said i think i've gotten pretty good at it he said well i'm not sure we get on very well i mean the the nine of us get on very well i mean who would want to be part of an institution where everybody uh dislikes each other you know i think it's actually one of the great things about the court right now is that even when people disagree and sometimes disagree sharply there are important questions hard questions that people have strong views on but that they can understand that that that everybody is trying to do the best they can and everybody's working really hard and everybody cares a lot about about the law and about this country as well i just finished my 18th term i still haven't heard the first unkind word in that room and you think what we've decided life and death abortion execution war and peace financial ruin government relationship with citizens you name it we've decided those discussions lead the justice to conclude tentatively to affirm or reverse in a particular case now that vote is not cast in concrete you are not walking on wet concrete yet you can change your mind it's not just win or lose reverse or affirm it's what rationale you use what principle you use to teach something and if uh there the case is uh close five to four and let's say you're on the side that prevailed the majority they're not a lot of high fives and back slaps and there's a moment of quiet a moment of respect my most important responsibility is the responsibility for assigning opinions once the votes are in if i'm in the majority i get to determine who will write the opinion in that case and that's a very important responsibility because you want to make sure that the assignment is given to the justice that commands whose view commands the most support on the court you want to make sure the work gets done on time so if someone's a little slower than others make sure that person gets assignments heavy assignments earlier on some cases are more interesting than others you want to make sure those are fairly distributed some cases are harder than others want to make sure that's fairly distributed we get all sorts of different issues you want to make sure each justice has a nice mix you don't want one justice just doing criminal cases or something like that so a lot of factors go into that decision and it's a very important part of it when we get through we sometimes have coffee sent in and maybe eat a sweet roll or a cookie or something as opinion writing assignments are handed out at the end of conference a room exists upstairs in the supreme court which helps the justices and their staffs consult precedent through the words written in the countless legal volumes housed here a room filled with not only books but the symbolism of the great lawgivers and admired by those few who enter into its mahogany grandeur if they want to see the most beautiful room in washington they ought to go up to the library on the third floor that nobody hardly sees today that's that's not so much roman classicism as renaissance classicism but it it's it is just a breathtakingly beautiful room the library is probably one of the most special places in the building the lunettes the archways in the library represent science law industry [Music] they're shields that are directly above the archways and those represents various printer symbols when i was clerking i spent a lot of time in the library and it was a gorgeous library it wouldn't go there to read supreme court cases because those would be in our own chambers but when looking for secondary materials of different kinds we would go to the library and we would work with the librarians it was a wonderful place to work it was also a quiet place to work the library is one of the special rooms in the building unfortunately it doesn't get used as much as it was when the building was first opened and that goes back to the way the court has changed the way it does things when the court first moved into the bill in 1935 they would literally call the docket each day in court so you didn't know which case was necessarily going to be argued that day you had an idea but a lot of attorneys had to be on site because if their case came up they needed to go down and be ready to argue it so that's why you have the lawyers lounge which is a place for them to stay while they're waiting to find out which cases are going to be argued and it's why you have this magnificent reading room here in the library and this space is reserved for the use of the members of the bar and court staff only there have been a few times when i had to use material from so many cases that we occupied two or three of those tables leaving the books out so that the law clerks and i could go up there and sit up in the reading room and actually refer to all those passages in the preparation of an opinion with precedents and cases researched in quiet chambers below this library justices go about the process of writing the opinions both majority and dissenting that eventually make their way to the public as the final decisions of the court it's an ongoing process you write a first draft you figure out well i need to know a little bit more about how this case fits in you go back and read the case you're always going back and looking at the briefs always bringing the law clerks in and bouncing ideas off of them what's wrong with it it's sort of a continuation of the oral argument process deciding your view of the case itself is terribly challenging some of the issues are really tough some are not some are clear-cut but some are enormously challenging and some cause you to want to wait yourself until you see other views expressed before being firm in your own view and it is a help to see it in writing and it's a help when you have to write to have to put it down in words rather than just think it through it's it's a real challenge we have to convince ourselves when i sit down and write an opinion the first thing i do is convince myself there's a lot of stuff goes in the wastebasket and then you have to convince others so um again this this court reminds you of the fact that you have this job to do when you try to write something out you sometimes learn things about the case that you did fully appreciate or understand before and there have been more than one case on which i have changed my views when i was writing the opinion as i have often put it i do not enjoy writing i enjoy having written i find writing a very um uh much difficult process i swear i sweat over it i write i rewrite i re rewrite again i mean uh if before the opinion goes out the walk will say it's you know it's going out this afternoon you want to read it one last time yeah let me read it one last time and i guarantee you every every time i read it i will change something else so it finally has to be rested from my grasp and sent down to the printer i usually have to spend write two or three drafts pretty much from scratch before i'm reasonably satisfied that we're going somewhere and then we edit them back and forth and when after they're edited back and forth i circulate it and i hope four other judges join if four other judges join i have the court we realize that one of us is going to have to write out a decision which teaches and gives reasons for what we do the the point of writing an opinion is to command some allegiance to the result and we have no army we have no budget we do not have press conferences and we don't give speeches saying how wonderful my dissent was or how bad the majority we don't do that we're judged by what we write i would like my opinions to be as as clear as possible i would like people to pick them up and understand them i would like them to be as thoughtful as possible i would like to write the kind of opinions which really do address the competing arguments don't try to sweep competing arguments under the rug but try to to address them fairly and forthrightly now once the person assigned to write for the majority opinion circulates an opinion draft then the other eight have a chance to weigh in and normally they start acting within a day or two they'll read it and say dear sandra i join or dear sandra i'll wait for the descent or dear sandra i want to give a little more thought to this before i act or dear sandra if you will change a b c and d to e f g h i would be able to join i mean it's something like that that happens now if there is a dissenting opinion to be written often people will wait and look at the dissent before casting their vote now once the dissent circulates it could be so powerful that it causes someone who tentatively had been with the majority to change their view to some extent so all of this the details are worked out not around the conference table it's in the writing of the opinions that the persuasion takes place let's say i would go the same direction but i'd go 80 yards but the majority only wants to go 60 and 60 would decide this case too so i would write the opinion to go 60 and not say anything about i would also go the other 20 yards now if i were writing a concurrence or dissent on my own i would write the opinion in a way reflects that i would go 80. so we're going the same way i could not write an opinion that went in in a direction that was different from what i actually thought we should go the dissents here are very they are they are rigorous and they don't pull punches so i think it ultimately improves the quality of the of the majority opinion but it's uh it it's something you have to anticipate descents are more fun to write i got to say that because when you have the dissent it's yours you say what you want and if somebody doesn't want to join it who cares you don't want to join my descent fine it's my descent this is what i want to say when you're writing a majority you do not have that luxury you have to you know craft it in a way that at least four other people can can jump on and actually you try to craft it in a way that as many people as possible will jump on which means accepting some suggestions stylistic and otherwise that really you don't think is the best but are the best but nonetheless in order to get everybody on board you take them if you're just starting out and someone says i'd like you to change this or that you're going to be very receptive when you've got eight votes and the ninth one comes in saying change this or that you often say well you know not quite go fly a kite but you know uh the fifth vote is is a more critical one you're more susceptible that uh making changes than the the ninth vote the job is to get to it we're not here in an academy to spin out theories we're not here producing works that are never going to see the light of day we're here to decide things the job is to decide we decide not to say the united states in this honorable court justice alito has the opinion of the court this morning in case 08289 versus forest this is our moment the first grab the copies of the opinions and go rushing through and the guy from reuters is always the most pushy to get through because he wants to get on the wire surface so you better get out of his way but the rest of us then go and either dictate or write the remaining decisions will be issued on monday the supreme court public information office simply says here's the material make of it what you will but we will make sure you have the material and that's enormously invaluable function and it's also very nice not to have the sense that somebody's trying to spin you i personally do go up and want to hear the opinion announced from the bench i like the the pageantry of that i'd like to hear the justice himself or herself announce what's in the opinion then i race down the stairs to the court press area where we all have our laptop set up now and i write a first version of that story so that it can get on our internet site readers really want to know as soon as possible what the court ruled and potentially what that might mean a lot of people say well it's a very secretive institution no it isn't it's an institution that virtually does most of its work in the open and as they like to say the work comes in the front door and goes out the front door you are just a few steps away from the courtroom near the courtroom are two rooms used by the justices to occasionally speak to the public as well from thurgood marshall's retirement announcement to events with other justices over time one can get a glimpse into the workings of the court and life here but it is the private view of the ornately decorated east and west conference rooms and their portraits of past chief justices that helps one understand the history of the court in the east conference room we have the first eight chief justices portraits so you can go in there and you can talk about the portrait of john jay the first chief justice and how he came to the court appointed by george washington and then he gets elected to be governor of new york and decides that that's a better job than being chief justice of the united states so he resigns and becomes governor of new york and then you have a beautiful portrait of john marshall by rembrandt peale here's the great chief justice himself in a grand portrait very similar to the one of george washington in the capitol building and there's a chance to talk about john marshall to let people know his story and that carries through over into the west conference room with the more modern justices where in fact you have the two instrumental justices in this building william howard taft on one wall and charles having shoes above the fireplace looking at each other through time i like to go sometimes on a quiet night to the conference rooms because the portraits on the walls eight and one reuben eight and the other are all my predecessors as chief justice to some extent you look up at them on the on the walls with a degree of awe appreciation for what they've been through they're probably looking down at me with either bemusement or amazement each of them has a special story to tell not only personally but with the institution of the court you look up at marshall and appreciate the importance for him of having the court function as a court moving the court from a situation where each justice wrote his own opinion and instead saying no we're going to have an opinion of the court which was vital in establishing the court and its present form right next to roger tawny the most unfortunate of my predecessors the author of the dred scott decision and you understand that he saw this great problem in the country of slavery and he was going to solve it and this is how he was going to solve it and tremendously misguided and injured the court for generations to come so that helps inform how you look at your own job you walk down a little further and you see morrison wait you had a thousand lawyers and law professors and said who was morris and white not one of them would maybe a couple of them would know and that's a good lesson in you know the job doesn't give you a prominent role or historical significance just because you hold the job you look at melville fuller and you understand his role in making sure the court functioned collegially you go in the next room and you see charles evans hughes and you recall his vital role in turning back the court backing plan and you think about the importance of the independence of the judiciary things like that from time to time i find it a a useful reminder of the role of the court and the role of the chief justice as time moves forward this building will remain timeless and the work of its institution inside will still be tied to past precedent and tradition but in many other ways it is a forever changing place defined by the human beings serving there as justices all trying to interpret a document over 200 years old in the context of an ever-changing world you really can't judge judges unless you know the materials that they're working with you can't say oh this is a good decision and this was a good court simply because you like the result it seems to you that the person who deserved to win won that's not the business judges are in we don't get it right all the time this is a human institution and it has the the same susceptibility to era than any other human institution has we have 300 million people probably have 900 million points of view i mean people in this country don't agree about a lot of things and despite enormous disagreement they've decided to resolve their differences under law what i do get a fulfillment from is living up to the oath to do it the right way and to know that on behalf of my fellow citizens i've tried to be faithful to their constitution to our constitution what i see i think has been very inspiring because i think you have nine people who are working really hard and who are trying the best that they're able to do something really important in this country i think the most important thing for the public to understand is that we're not a political branch of government they don't elect us if they don't like what we're doing it's more or less just too bad other than impeachment which has never happened or conviction on impeachment has never happened with the court so they need to understand when we reach a decision it's based on the law and not a policy preference we have the constitution and the laws and i think they mean something they don't necessarily mean what i want them to mean in every instance they mean something and i think the people of the united states trust us to interpret and apply those laws fairly and even-handedly and and objectively and that's what that's the great responsibility that we have the supreme court in general has been respected by the american people i think it's been one of the institutions of government that is most respected so it isn't size that makes the grandeur or the specialness of the place it's what it symbolizes and what goes on here that makes it special and it is [Music] [Music] you