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Open Secret: Why The Supreme Court Has Nothing To Fear From The Internet, Keith J. Bybee Jan 2012

Open Secret: Why The Supreme Court Has Nothing To Fear From The Internet, Keith J. Bybee

Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University

The United States Supreme Court has an uneasy relationship with openness: it complies with some calls for transparency, drags its feet in response to others, and sometimes simply refuses to go along. I argue that the Court’s position is understandable given that the internet age of fluid information and openness has often been heralded in terms that are antithetical to the Court’s operations. Even so, I also argue the Court actually has little to fear from greater transparency. The understanding of the Court with the greatest delegitimizing potential is the understanding that the justices render decisions on the basis of …


Legal Realism, Common Courtesy, And Hypocrisy, Keith J. Bybee Jan 2005

Legal Realism, Common Courtesy, And Hypocrisy, Keith J. Bybee

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, courts are publicly defined by their distance from politics. Politics is said to be a matter of interest, competition, and compromise. Law, by contrast, is said to be a matter of principle and impartial reason. This distinction between courts and politics, though common, is also commonly doubted - and this raises difficult questions. How can the courts at once be in politics yet not be of politics? If the judiciary is mired in politics, how can one be sure that all the talk of law is not just mummery designed to disguise the pursuit of partisan …