All posts by Chris Schmidt

OT 2016, Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup – February 17, 2017

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Did you miss your Supreme Court news this week? Let our Weekly Roundup help. (To stay on top of the latest Supreme Court happenings, follow @ISCOTUS on Twitter.)

The Supreme Court was not especially busy this week, with its only official event a Conference in Friday. Nonetheless, there are still a few news stories of note. Monday marked the first anniversary of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death. USA Today reported that Justice Scalia “made quite an impression on a first-year law student from Colorado named Neil Gorsuch,” noting that Judge Gorsuch was in attendance when Scalia gave the Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Lecture at Harvard Law School in 1989. During that event, Scalia discussed his philosophy on adhering to the Constitution and other laws as they were written, and said “[j]udges are sometimes called upon to be courageous, because they must sometimes stand up to what is generally supreme in a democracy: the popular will.” USA Today notes that if he is confirmed, Judge Gorsuch will be the first Justice to have been influenced by Scalia while still in law school. Nonetheless, his influence has already been widely felt. Justice Elena Kagan has stated Scalia’s teachings “changed the way almost all judges, and so almost all lawyers, think and talk about the law,” and that “we’re all textualists now.”

Corinne Purtill, of Quartz wrote on Wednesday about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s February 6, 2017 speech at Stanford University.  Justice Ginsburg gave some advice that she finds to be useful at both work and in her life. The advice, she explained, “comes from my savvy mother-in-law, advice she gave me on my wedding day. ‘In every good marriage,’ she counseled, ‘it helps sometimes to be a little deaf.’ I have followed that advice assiduously, and not only at home through 56 years of a marital partnership nonpareil. I have employed it as well in every workplace, including the Supreme Court.” She explained that “when a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out. Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade.” The Justice remarked that she has used this strategy while working on the Supreme Court, and stated that she and her colleagues on the Court make sure they maintain respect and friendship, adding “Collegiality is crucial to the success of our mission.” Video highlights of Justice Ginsburg’s remarks, along with a summary, can be found Stanford News. ISCOTUSnow discussed other coverage of the lecture on Monday.

The official confirmation process of Judge Neil Gorsuch has also begun this week. According to The Washington Times, Judge Gorsuch has delivered his questionnaire to the Senate. The questionnaire is the first step in the confirmation process, and reveals extensive detail of his career in law and justice. Judge Gorsuch reported that he has never had an opinion he wrote overturned by the Supreme Court, although one was vacated. The Washington Times article highlighted some of the cases in which Judge Gorsuch refused to give the executive branch free reign, noting that Democrats on the Judiciary Committee will undoubtedly want “a proactive show of independence.” The Washington Post announced on Thursday that his confirmation hearings will begin on March 20, 2017.

For more information on the nomination of Judge Gorsuch, check out ISCOTUSnow next week for “The Gorsuch Report: the Latest News on the Nomination Process” where we will update in more detail the latest news on his nomination.

 

Confirmation Hearings, Gorsuch, Justices

Remembering Justice Scalia–One Year Later

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Just over a year ago, the nation lost Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the most significant members of the Supreme Court in recent history. “Nino Scalia will go down in history as one of the most transformational Supreme Court justices of our nation,” Justice Kagan stated. Justice Breyer described him as a “legal titan.”

Antonin Scalia was born in 1936 to a college professor and a schoolteacher in Trenton, New Jersey. He received his bachelor’s degree in history from Georgetown in 1957, his law degree from Harvard in 1960. A talented student, Justice Scalia graduated at the top of his high school, undergraduate, and law school classes. After law school, he practiced as a commercial lawyer. Then, beginning in 1967, he taught law at the University of Virginia. In 1971, he went to work for the Nixon and Ford Administrations in a variety of positions; from 1974 to 1977, he served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. He returned to teaching law, this time at the University of Chicago, in 1977. In 1982, he was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In 1986, President Reagan nominated him to the Supreme Court, and the Senate confirmed him with a unanimous vote.

Scalia was a passionate and influential advocate of originalism—a theory of constitutional interpretation based on adherence to the public meaning of the text at the time of ratification. But he would on occasion soften some of the sharp edges of the theory. He called himself a “fainthearted originalist,” by which he meant that he sometimes accepted longstanding precedent even when it did not align with the original meaning of a constitutional provision. His most famous demonstration of his version of originalism came in his opinion for the Court in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), where he concluded that the original meaning of the Second Amendment was to protect an individual’s right to have a gun in the home for purposes of self defense. He supported his conclusion with pages and pages of history from the Founding Era; Justice Stevens, writing in dissent, felt compelled to write his own originalist analysis, matching Scalia’s historical treatise with one of his own. In addition to his originalism, Justice Scalia was well known for his biting dissents and witty, colorful writing. For a Supreme Court justice, his prose were unusually memorable.

The death of a sitting Supreme Court Justice has become an increasingly rare event. Only one other justice (William Rehnquist) has passed away while still in office in the past half century. (Scott Boddery in the Washington Post considers reasons deaths of sitting justices have become so unusual.)

Scalia’s seat on the Court remains empty today, over a year after his death. Republicans in the Senate refused to hold hearings on President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, claiming that Justice Scalia’s seat should not be filled until after the presidential election. It was an unprecedented, longshot strategy to try to avoid allowing a Democratic President to fill the conservative justices seat. It has appeared to work. The Republicans won the presidency and preserved their Senate majority, and the new President’s nominee to the Court, Neil Gorsuch, a judge whose commitment to originalism and conservative record put him in close alignment with Justice Scalia, is poised to fill the vacant seat.

OT 2016, Weekly Preview

The Week Ahead – February 13, 2017

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The Court has no oral arguments scheduled for this week, but will have Conference on Friday.

Late on Thursday, the Ninth Circuit declined to issue a stay of the district court’s TRO of President Trump’s travel ban. It also set a schedule for full briefing. On Friday, the Ninth Circuit issued an order, prompted by at least one judge (presumably not one of the judges on the original panel) asking the parties to brief whether the court should rehear the motion for a stay en banc. Those papers are due later this week.

It remains to be seen whether the Court will weigh in on the travel ban, as the Trump administration has sent mixed signals on whether it will seek review. The Washington Post reports that Chief of Staff Reince Preibus said Friday night that the administration is considering an appeal to the Court. This came minutes after another official said the administration would not seek certiorari. The Post speculates that the Administration might ask the Court for immediate intervention.

The New York Times reports on Trump’s options, which include two roads to the Supreme Court: a conventional petition for review following the Ninth Circuit’s full review of the appeal or an emergency application asking the Court to stay the trial court’s ruling. If he does the latter, the Court could act within days. Times reports  that the Justices would not hear arguments, but would “issue a very brief order announcing the outcome with little or no legal reasoning.” The case has become particularly tangled procedurally, in part as a result of the Administration’s insistence on an appeal. An interesting and quite critical look at the Ninth Circuit’s actions so far can be found here.

In an unusual confluence of popular culture and the Supreme Court, an upcoming case was highlighted at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night. Actress and transgender activist Laverne Cox, who appears on the Netflix show, Orange is the New Black, introduced Metallica and Lady Gaga. During her introduction, Cox said: “Everyone, please Google ‘Gavin Grimm.’ He’s going to the Supreme Court in March. Hashtag stand with Gavin.” Gavin Grimm is the teenage boy whose rights are at issue in Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., a Supreme Court case scheduled to be argued at the end of March. As the Washington Post explains, the case began when Grimm and his parents sued to require the school district to let him use the boys’ restroom. The district court and the Fourth Circuit both ruled in Grimm’s favor, but the Supreme Court stayed those orders pending its review. The litigation implicates an Obama Administration interpretation of federal anti-discrimination law, and LGBTQ activists are now lobbying the Trump Administration not to backtrack.

Check out ISCOTUSnow this Wednesday for “The Gorsuch Report: The Latest News on the Nomination Process” where we will update the latest news on Judge Gorsuch’s nomination.

OT 2016, Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup – February 10, 2017

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Did you miss your Supreme Court news this week? Let our Weekly Roundup help. (To stay on top of the latest Supreme Court happenings, follow @ISCOTUS on Twitter.)

This week, while the Supreme Court was in recess, Justice Ginsburg spoke at Stanford University, delivering the 2017 Rathbun Lecture on a Meaningful Life. Ginsburg addressed topics including the importance of collegiality at the Court, her desire to change the Electoral College and her criticism of the death penalty, and what it means to lead a meaningful life. “I tell the law students I address now and then, if you’re going to be a lawyer and just practice your profession, well, you have a skill, so you’re very much like a plumber. If you want to be a true professional, you will do something outside yourself,” Ginsburg stated. “Something to repair tears in your community. Something to make life a little better for people less fortunate than you. That’s what I think a meaningful life is – living not for oneself, but for one’s community.”

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel from United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments from attorneys for the state of Washington and the U.S. Department of Justice about President Trump’s Executive Order mandating a travel ban affecting seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees. The parties argued over whether a federal judge’s temporary restraining order precluding enforcement of the order, should be stayed. On Thursday, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion refusing to stay the TRO. It did not reach all of the issues presented in the case, however, and it set a briefing schedule for fuller consideration.

Before the Ninth ruled, Adam Liptak of the New York Times argued that the issue will likely end up before the Supreme Court, but the decision from the Ninth Circuit might have the ultimate impact. He explained, “[n]o matter how the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rules — in a decision that is expected within days — an appeal to the United States Supreme Court is likely. That court remains short-handed and could deadlock. A 4-to-4 tie in the Supreme Court would leave the appeals court’s ruling in place.” As of this writing, less than 24 hours after the Ninth Circuit decision, the federal government has not asked for Supreme Court intervention, and there are reports that the administration is considering rewriting the Executive Order.

The audio from the Ninth Circuit hearing was streamed live on Youtube and on CNN and MSNBC, with more than 137,000 people listening to the Youtube broadcast. Timothy McLaughlin from Reuters reports that around 2.6 million people tuned into the broadcast either online or on a news network. The hearings were conducted across a conference call, meaning only the audio could be broadcast; McLaughlin writes, “the lack of visuals did not scare away those interested – and even led some to liken the experience to huddling around a radio in the pre-TV era.”

That President Trump has been vocal in his dissatisfaction with the court rulings on his Order and has been disparaging of the judges and courts is affecting the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch. In a meeting with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) on Wednesday, Judge Gorsuch reportedly stated that Trump’s recent criticism of the judiciary, stemming from the stay on his executive order, was “demoralizing and disheartening.” The White House, however, has denied that these statements referred directly to the President, and Judge Gorsuch has not spoken publicly.

Julie Hirschfeld Davis of the New York Times argues that Gorsuch’s comments serve to emphasize the importance of the peculiar tension between Trump and the judiciary, writing, “The spectacle of a Supreme Court nominee breaking so starkly with the president who named him underscored the unusual nature of Mr. Trump’s public feud with the judiciary.” She goes on to say that “Mr. Trump’s rhetorical battle with the judiciary may also end up harming his cause in a case that may end up before the Supreme Court, by potentially stiffening the resolve of judges who feel their independence is under attack.” On the other hand, Rick Hanson at the Electoral Law Blog argues that Gorsuch’s statements were more of a strategic move made to secure his confirmation.

Finally, in an op-ed for the Washington Post, Jason Murray argues that liberals should resist the impulse to reject Gorsuch because he has “a fierce commitment to the rule of law”, is “remarkably similar. . .to Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan,” and that “[t]his zeal for the rule of law gives. . . every confidence that Gorsuch, like Kagan, will stand firm against any effort by the Trump administration to abuse executive power.”

For more on the Gorsuch nomination, check out ISCOTUSnow’s Gorsuch Report on Wednesdays.

Confirmation Hearings, Gorsuch

The Gorsuch Report—Week 2

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It has been over a week since President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The widely respected and impressively credentialed Judge Gorsuch, currently sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

The nomination was met with the predictable outpouring of support from Republicans, while the response from Democrats has been more mixed. Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein praised Gorsuch calling him “caring” and “obviously legally very smart.” CBS News reports that Senator Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, did not promise a vote for Gorsuch but describes him as “impressive.”

In an article posted on Politico, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer laid the groundwork for challenge to Gorsuch. The Senate is “doing its job by critically evaluating” Gorsuch, he explains, emphasizing the distinction between the Senate supporting a judge for a federal bench position, and supporting a judge for a Supreme Court bench position.

Feinstein and others have noted Gorsuch’s young age: at 49-years-old, Gorsuch would be the youngest member of the Court by seven years (Justice Kagan, 56, is the next youngest). Since 1900, only 12 justices have been nominated at a younger age than Gorsuch. Current justice, Clarence Thomas, was nominated by George H.W. Bush in 1991, at the age of 43.

Another common topic of commentary is how Gorsuch compares to the late Justice Scalia, whose seat he would take if confirmed. The Huffington Post breaks down Gorsuch’s stance on a variety of constitutional issues, concluding Gorsuch is a “Scalia-in-waiting.” Adam Liptak of the New York Times explains that the most notable difference between the two is that Gorsuch’s “tone is consistently courteous and mild, while some of Justice Scalia’s dissents were caustic and wounding.”

On this blog, Professor Christopher Schmidt discusses  the particular value of the Supreme Court confirmation process during times like these when the value of the legal process and the courts are under challenge.

This Day In Supreme Court History

This Day in Supreme Court History—February 8, 1794

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On this day in 1794, Supreme Court arguments opened in the case of Glass v. The Sloop Betsey. A French privateer, Pierre Arcade Johannene, had captured a Swedish-owned vessel—The Betsey—and delivered it to a Baltimore port. Johannene was probably acting under the presumption that the Betsey was a British vessel. France and Britain were at war at the time, and French privateers often brought captured British ships to American ports to determine what to do with the cargo (this despite President Washington’s declaration that America would remain neutral in the conflict).

Upon arriving in Baltimore, there was a dispute over what to do with the cargo on the Betsey. The vessel was from Sweden—another neutral party in the conflict between France and Britain—and the cargo on board belonged to both Swedes and Americans. One American sued in the U.S. District Court in Maryland to recover his share of the cargo, but the court held that it lacked jurisdiction to hear an admiralty dispute. On appeal, the circuit court agreed, leading Glass to the Supreme Court.

After four days of arguments at the Court, Chief Justice John Jay delivered the Court’s unanimous decision on February 19, 1794. The Court held that the lower federal courts had jurisdiction to hear admiralty cases and remanded Glass back to the District Court.

Although the legal question at issue in Glass was a relatively technical jurisdictional question, Jay made clear in his opinion for the Court that he saw at stake much larger questions involving the sovereignty of the new nation. Johannene apparently took the Betsey to Baltimore under the presumption that since no American court had the jurisdiction to decide ownership of the cargo, France would establish a court in the United States to adjudicate these kinds of admiralty disputes. Jay was having none of this. “[N]o foreign power can of right institute or erect any court of judicature of any kind within the jurisdiction of the United States” without express permission. The new courts of the new nation would deal with legal disputes on its shores.

Confirmation Hearings, Gorsuch

In Praise of the Supreme Court Confirmation Process

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It sometimes feels like no one has anything good to say about the Supreme Court confirmation process. Some lament its lack of substance. (Back when she was a law professor, Justice Kagan described it as “a vapid and hollow charade.”) Some worry it has become too partisan. (Just last spring, Chief Justice Roberts said that a “sharply political, divisive hearing process … increases the danger that whoever comes out of it will be viewed in those terms.”)

Despite these criticisms, something the confirmation process does quite well is to focus the nation’s attention on the idea of the rule of law and the values of an independent judiciary. Usually the discussion of these topics are little more than obligatory checkboxes for senators and the nominee prior to rolling up their sleeves and discussing the more contentious issue of constitutional interpretation and hot-button topics such as abortion and gay rights. But today, when people from across the ideological spectrum see the most basic principles of legal process and judicial independence under threat from the executive branch, what before might have felt like platitudes take on new importance.

When John Roberts sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2005, he gave an opening statement in which he explained that after having served as a lawyer in the Justice Department, he entered private practice, where he argued cases before the Supreme Court. It was not until this point in his career that “I fully appreciated the importance of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system,” he noted.

 Here was the United States, the most powerful entity in the world, aligned against my client, and yet all I had to do was convince the Court that I was right on the law, and the Government was wrong, and all that power and might would recede in deference to the rule of law.

That is a remarkable thing. It is what we mean when we say that we are a Government of laws and not of men. It is that rule of law that protects the rights and liberties of all Americans. It is the envy of the world, because without the rule of law, any rights are meaningless.

This is indeed a remarkable thing. We are fortunate that most of the time we can take the rule of law for granted. But there are times when this basic, essential principle is threatened, and at times like these we need find opportunities to stop and reflect upon its importance. The upcoming confirmation hearings for Judge Gorsuch will give us this opportunity.

 

 

OT 2016, Weekly Preview

The Week Ahead – February 6, 2017

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The Supreme Court is still in recess this week, but the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch means that the Court remains in the spotlight. Vice President Pence gave a speech to the conservative Federalist Society in Philadelphia last week, and according to CBS News, he stated that an attempt by the Democrats to filibuster the nomination would be “unwise.”  The Vice President noted that there has never been a successful filibuster of a United States Supreme Court Associate Justice nominee, and that Judge Gorsuch is willing to meet will all senators if they would like to. If there is a filibuster, however, President Trump has urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to unleash the “nuclear” option. The nuclear option allows the nomination to move forward with a bare majority vote regardless of any filibuster, instead of the current 60-vote threshold to end a filibuster. For those interested in more information on the filibuster, the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” explains some of the rules and history and takes issue with the language some Democrats have used in asserting that Judge Gorsuch must meet a 60-vote standard.

Scott Bomboy of Constitution Daily outlined the procedures for the next steps of Judge Gorsuch’s nomination. The Senate Judiciary Committee must authorize an investigation of Gorsuch, which includes a questionnaire for him to complete, an FBI investigation, and a rating of his qualifications issued by the ABA. After these are completed, a public Senate hearing will occur. After consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee, his nomination will be sent to the Senate for a vote. (The nomination can move to the full Senate even if — as is highly unlikely here – the Committee votes against him.)

Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times recently discussed how the Supreme Court may respond to President Trump and evaluate any constitutionality debates that may arise from his actions. She argues that because Republican-controlled Congress appears unlikely to push back against Trump, the judiciary is now the only government branch “standing between the new administration and constitutional chaos,” and “going forward, the Roberts court may find the most pressing issues on its docket to concern core questions of civil liberties and the separation of powers.” Greenhouse notes that Chief Justice Roberts has in the past been deferential to broad claims of executive power related to national security, albeit sometimes in the minority. In particular, in  Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy, held that detainees at Guantanamo had the right to file habeas petitions. Chief Justice Roberts, however, joined what Greenhouse calls “a hyperbolic dissenting opinion by Justice Scalia that opened with ‘America is at war with radical Islamists’ …” And she notes that Roberts “also filed a dissenting opinion of his own, in which he asked rhetorically who had won the case. The answer, he said, was ‘certainly not the American people, who today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges.’”

In light of these concerns, Greenhouse urges the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask Judge Gorsuch about how he would have approached Boumediene.

Concerns about the role of the judiciary when confronted national security claims made by the executive were highlighted over the weekend when President Trump issued a series of tweets criticizing Judge Robart, the federal district judge who last week stayed Trump’s executive order on immigration. (That order is now on appeal in the Ninth Circuit and could well go to the Supreme Court next, possibly in the form of a request for a stay.) In one tweet, Trump said that he “cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system.” Numerous observers interpreted this and other tweets as attacks on an independent judiciary. And this too could play a role in the Gorsuch hearings: Professor Eric Posner argued in The New York Times that Judge Gorsuch must condemn those attacks or risk losing his support in the legal community.

Check out ISCOTUSnow this Wednesday for “The Gorsuch Report: The Latest News on the Nomination Process” where we will update the latest news on Judge Gorsuch’s nomination.

 

OT 2016, Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup – February 3, 2017

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Did you miss your Supreme Court news this week? Let our Weekly Roundup help. (To stay on top of the latest Supreme Court happenings, follow @ISCOTUS on Twitter.)

The Court did not issue decisions or hear arguments this week, but President Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Court has the news buzzing. Gorsuch has served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver for the past ten years. He was appointed to the Tenth Circuit by President George W. Bush in 2006. SCOTUSblog profiled him in mid-January, and has also compiled a list of some of his important cases here. The Washington Post also takes a look at some of Gorsuch’s key decisions, including Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, where he argued that “Chevron deference” has gone too far. (Chevron deference requires a court to defer to an executive agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute.)

Numerous other news outlets and commentators describe Gorsuch’s background and jurisprudence, some emphasizing his views about religious freedom as reflected in his opinions in two cases involving the Obamacare contraception mandate. This week, Nina Totenberg at NPR also discussed Gorsuch’s originalist tendencies, and suggested that, if confirmed, Gorsuch likely will rule similarly to Scalia. Elsewhere, in response to claims about Gorsuch’s originalism, ISCOTUS Co-Director Carolyn Shapiro argues that originalism does not provide the objective answers its proponents claim.

Much coverage and commentary have focused on the confirmation process and the Democrats’ response to the nomination. On Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said that he expects a confirmation hearing in about six weeks. CNS news reports that Grassley has suggested that the Senate should work through Easter break if necessary for a prompt confirmation. Meanwhile, some Democrats and their allies are urging a filibuster of the nomination, at least in part because of the Republicans’ refusal to even consider President Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland. Likewise, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has hinted that a filibuster could follow if the hearings reveal that Gorsuch is outside the mainstream.  The New York Times reports that President Trump encouraged the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, on Wednesday to invoke the “nuclear option” and abandon the 60-vote requirement for confirmation, but Senator McConnell has not made his intentions clear, and some warn that the nuclear option could have deleterious consequences. CBS News discusses both sides of the argument here.

Finally, on Friday the Supreme Court announced its March argument calendar. To the surprise of some, the calendar includes arguments in two of the cases the Court had not previously scheduled (Murr v. Wisconsin on regulatory takings and Microsoft Corp. v Baker, on appeals of denials of class certification) because, people thought, they were likely to result in 4-4 splits, and it also includes argument in the very high profile case about transgender students’ access to bathrooms, Gloucester County School Board v. G.G.  But even if there are no delays in Senator Grassley’s confirmation schedule and even if the Senate promptly confirms Judge Gorsuch, he is very unlikely to be on the bench in time to hear those cases.

Return to ISCOTUS on Wednesday of next week to view our first weekly installment of “The Gorsuch Report,” where we survey the latest news on Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch.

History of the Court, This Day In Supreme Court History

This Day in Supreme Court History—February 1, 1790

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On February 1, 1790, U.S. Supreme Court sat for the first time. They met on the second floor of the Merchants Exchange Building in New York City, the nation’s capital at the time.

In addition to Chief Justice John Jay, associate justices William Cushing of Massachusetts and James Wilson of Pennsylvania were present. Missing from the first sitting of the Court were Justices John Rutledge of South Carolina, John Blair of Virginia, and Robert Harrison of Maryland.

The scene at the Court’s scheduled opening on February 1 was “uncommonly crowded,” according to one press account. Among those in attendance were New York City’s mayor, the federal judge for the district of New York, the Recorder of New York, and the Marshal of the district of New York.

The Court dedicated its first sessions to organizational proceedings. The justices appointed a court crier and a clerk, and admitted lawyers to the bar. The Court heard no cases that day. In fact, it heard no cases during its entire first term. The next year, the Court reconvened in Philadelphia, the new national capital.