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69 A.B.A. J. 40 (1983)
Public Information at the United States Supreme Court

handle is hein.journals/abaj69 and id is 40 raw text is: By Barrett McGurn THE Washington Post once called the Supreme Court the most secret and least investigated governmental institution in Washington, but exactly the opposite thesis can be defended: that the Court is the most open of all Washington's gov- ernmental institutions. In effect, it oper- ates in a goldfish bowl. The Supreme Court receives about 5,000 new cases a year. Half of these are pauper cases, many of them from prison- ers seizing the chance that a fortuitous intervention might restore them to free- dom. The other half are paid cases, in which there are printed briefs. The Court requests 40 copies of each brief, and the Public Information Office receives three of those. One set is placed on open shelves where any interested member of the news media and public may consult them. One set goes to the Associated Press, which has two reporters on duty at the Court every work day. The third goes to United Press International, which matches the A.P. man for man, or, more precisely, person for person, since U.PI. for decades has included women reporters on its court staff. The three sets are in the Public Infor- mation Office and with the A.P. and U.P.I. for about a year, until the Court has disposed of each case. After that the clerk of the Court recaptures and for- wards them to legal depository libraries across the country. Some of these li- braries have all Supreme Court briefs back to 1830. Public Information at the United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court is the most open of Washington's governmental institutions. In effect, it operates in a fishbowl. But some improvements might be considered to help reporters understand a mass of material under deadline pressures. Thus the reporters. through one set of briefs or another, are privy to every argument litigants have presented to the Court in some 2,500 cases each year. The pauper cases may come in a single copy in a handwritten scrawl. They are held in a file room in the Court, but any interested reporter is free to examine the documentation in pauper cases by visit- ing the file room. Up to this point, there is total disclo- sure. . When the Court decides the cases it will hear and those it will turn away, which is done at a Friday conference during most of the term but in a Thurs- day conference in the final hectic weeks, on the following Monday an order list is released from the bench making these decisions a matter of open public record. When cases are argued, about 150 a 40 American Bar Association Journal

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