Mar 11, 2008
Call me a little sick, but I enjoy listening to (and reading!) the oral arguments given in Supreme Court cases. We can thank Jerry Goldman, who created Oyez in 1994 in an effort to share details about the Justices and their cases. He’s taken thousands of reel-to-reel tapes of the Supreme Court proceedings stored in the National Archives and converted them to streaming audio (with captions) and MP3’s on his website. This is an unprecedented look inside a notoriously mysterious institution. Justice David Souter once said, in regards to allowing cameras to broadcast it’s proceedings,”the day you see a camera come into our courtroom, it’s going to roll over my dead body.” That didn’t stop Jerry Goldman from providing an excellent website with audio and transcripts of the court’s oral arguments.
Oyez is extremely accessible for the hearing impaired: the transcripts are excellent and intuitive. Unlike a lot of captioned television out there, these transcripts follow along with the speech with precise timing- beginning a line just as the speaker starts. Not only do we get the text- but the speaker is identified with a name and picture. Also, I like that they underline the text that is being spoken. The transcript is especially pertinent here because the audio quality is poor- high quality digital recordings are not a priority for the Supreme Court. They use reel to reel. Jerry Goldman is pushing for high quality digital recordings.
What I really love: I can listen to the personalities of the Judges- the anger, irony, humor, and utter frustration that comes forth. The tension between the judges is quite apparent at times, even though they go to great lengths to hide it. All these things I could sense before (I’ve got that skill down)- but now I can also follow exactly what they are saying. That is very valuable. I hope that more websites follow this transcript model and dare to improve on it.
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