After a long break, postings to this blog are now resuming. And I'll start with a question raised by students in my "Debating Controversial Landmark Court Decisions" class. This question actually should be of interest to students in all my classes, be it English or law. The question: are television cameras allowed to film oral arguments in front of the U.S. Supreme Court? The answer: No. I actually wrote about this topic about a year ago, but a case is currently before the Court that has made me want to revisit this issue.
The case, Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, concerns fines given out by the FCC to the Fox television network. The fines were were for "indecent" language on live television (here is one example from the Golden Globe Awards; at around 5:35 of the clip you can hear U2's Bono utter the "offensive" word).
In the lower courts, lawyers arguing in defense of Fox used the offending words as part of their arguments. One commentator described the arguments as being littered with the talk of seventh grade boys in a locker room. So as time drew near for oral arguments in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, commentators began to wonder whether Fox's attorney would dare to utter these words in front of the nine justices of the Supreme Court. So if televisions are not allowed in the courtroom, then what's the big deal?
Well, a few years ago the Court started allowing audio recordings of oral arguments to be released on the same day of the arguments. But in anticipation of this argument, Chief Justice Roberts has said the audio from this particular argument will not be available until the end of the term. This rather silly attempt to protect the public from naughty words was for naught. The lawyer for Fox decided against filling the hallowed chamber of the Court with F-words and S-words, so the audio of the arguments is "clean." Heaven forbid a few colorful terms be heard over the public airwaves or via mp3 download from the Court.
