Very Few February Sketches
Other than the Arizona voting case it was a pretty quiet calendar for the SCOTUS February sitting. This month will be pretty much the same, but April looks to pick up the pace. And I’m getting fat and lazy.
Other than the Arizona voting case it was a pretty quiet calendar for the SCOTUS February sitting. This month will be pretty much the same, but April looks to pick up the pace. And I’m getting fat and lazy.
January was a little crazy here in DC so maybe I’ll be forgiven for forgetting to post these sketches in a timely manner. Fewer cases than usual were on the calendar, and arguments continued to be heard remotely by telephone.
I’ve imagined cobwebs on the bench. Maybe sheets have been thrown over the Justices’ chairs to protect them from dust like in an old horror movie.
Darkness was everywhere, it smelled like a tomb
I was ready to leave, I was already walkin’
But the next time I looked, there was light in the
We look forward to that day, probably the first Monday in October, when we are back in the courtroom. Meanwhile, the 2020 term goes on with lawyers making their arguments by telephone from dining room tables and law offices.
With one third of the Supreme Court now comprised of Trump appointed justices there was fear that last Tuesday’s election might end up being decided by the justices. That now seems unlikely given the margins, much to the relief of the Court I imagine.
The Justices continue to hear arguments by telephone conference, though probably not on the receivers pictured above. Below are sketches done from photos arguing counsel were kind enough to send me.
After a rushed and contentious partisan confirmation Justice Amy Coney Barrett will join the chief and associate justices to hear oral arguments tomorrow. And with the presidential election upon us there is a good chance we will soon have a sense of the new Court.
No justices were actually sitting in the courtroom on the first Monday of the October 2020 term, nor where any lawyers or the public. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced all of us to adapt to new conditions of social distancing. For the Supreme Court that has meant hearing arguments by conference call, with the bonus that the audio is live-streamed to the public. For me, while it’s great to listen to the arguments from the comfort of my studio, there’s not much to draw. At least there wasn’t until arguing counsel started sending me photos of their kitchen-table set-ups ( not really, at least not yet. But I’m hoping for a kitchen setting ). I’m enjoying the change after forty years of lawyers in suits arguing from the lectern.