This week I read a few articles in The New York Times covering the Supreme Court arguments scheduled for the next few weeks in May. Some of the cases are minor copyright suits, and some will have a much more immediate effect on the average American life — whether or not electoral college members are required to cast their votes for the candidates they pledged to support, and whether or not Trump can dismantle DACA. 

However, these cases will not be argued in the physical building of the Supreme Court. Instead, the nine justices will log onto an audio conference call, where they will hear arguments while seated robeless in their own home offices. And even weirder, the public will be able to listen in. The institution that is supposed to uphold the “majesty of the law” and is literally called the “supreme” court is subject to the same external force of coronavirus that the rest of the American public is dealing with. I found this very interesting, because I wonder if the stripping away of tradition and distance that the Supreme Court holds from whatever immediate struggles or triumphs the public is experiencing will erode the Court’s legitimacy as apolitical and supreme, especially given the polarizing nature of the cases they are hearing. One of the things that Sister Prejean talked about in Dead Man Walking is the idea that the court must maintain it’s apolitical facade or people would be reluctant to turn their own vengeance over to the justice system. 

On an individual level, the justices will probably become more clearly independent people rather than a united body of nine because we will hear their individual voices and questions. Even if very few members of the public decide to listen to the arguments, I know that the very fact that the justices had to be socially distant will change the way people see the Court.