We need to see the Supremes in action

By MARSHA MERCER
Media General News Service
WASHINGTON -- A motel clerk out West once asked Antonin Scalia if he pronounced his name like the Supreme Court justice.
Barbara A. Perry writes in "The Priestly Tribe," her 1999 book about the Supreme Court's image, that Scalia "could barely refrain from blurting at the clerk, 'How many Antonin Scalias are there?'"
That's a question many were asking last week during the confirmation hearings of Samuel Alito. Is he another Scalia?
The poor motel clerk had stumbled onto a more basic question. Should Supreme Court justices be the most powerful people nobody recognizes?
Close your eyes and picture Anthony Kennedy. David Souter. John Paul Stevens. I rest my case.
As President Bush's first nominee to the highest court, John Roberts lived in limelight for weeks. Then, in late September, he took the oath as chief justice and vanished. Most people probably would be unable to place Roberts' friendly face if he sat beside them on an airplane.
Take a good look at Alito. If he's confirmed to the court, he'll drop out of sight faster than someone in the witness protection program.
Justices arguably exert more control over our lives than any elected official, and yet they're nearly anonymous. We never see them work. The Supreme Court is the last TV-free zone in Washington.
The court's concession to modernity is the occasional release of audiotapes of important oral arguments -- two since Roberts took over. But TV cameras? Never.
That's too bad, because TV would bring millions of citizens into the court that decides crucial issues of our lives. Today, only those who travel here, stand in line and crowd into the few public seats get a glimpse.
Why is the court reluctant to open the door to TV?
Barbara Perry writes that David Souter said in 1993 that when he served on the New Hampshire Supreme Court, which is televised, he deliberately avoided asking questions he thought viewers wouldn't understand.
The fear that justice could be inhibited is a real one. But many justices make speeches and travel widely. They serve for life and never face voters. Surely, they could rise above camera shyness.
Small, unobtrusive
Cameras today are small and unobtrusive, and the lighting might remain muted, although C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb has said the justices would look better in stronger light.
The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist argued that cameras would diminish the mystique and authority of the court. Others say cameras encourage lawyers to showboat. But playing to the cameras at the Supreme Court seems less likely than one might think watching Congress.
The court hears oral arguments in about 100 cases annually. Each case is distilled into an hour of public argument, divided equally between the two sides. That's what broadcasters want to show -- not the private deliberations behind closed doors with only the justices present.
Roberts has been noncommittal about TV coverage.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, who favors cameras in the Supreme Court, quizzed Alito.
Specter cited Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, a 1980 case in which the Supreme Court said the right to a public trial belongs not just to the accused but to the public and the press.
"How about it?" Specter asked the nominee. "Why shouldn't the Supreme Court be open to the public with television?"
It was one of the few topics on which Alito admitted he had an opinion.
He'd argued for TV coverage of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, where he's a judge, he said. "I thought it would be a useful ... "
Specter interrupted: "Really? You have taken a position on this issue?"
Yes, Alito was for permitting cameras, but he'd been in the minority.
"The majority was fearful that our Nielsen numbers would be in the negative," he joked.
Alito wouldn't speculate about whether he'd favor cameras in the Supreme Court, noting that at least one justice has said cameras would come only over his dead body.
That was Souter who told a House committee a decade ago, "The day you see a camera in our courtroom, it's gonna roll over my dead body!"
X Marsha Mercer is Washington Bureau chief of Media General News Service. Distributed by Scripps Howard.