JAMES TARANTO: Disorder in the Court: The case against televising oral arguments.
This columnist is keenly interested in the U.S. Supreme Court, but we’ve never had much of an opinion on the oft-debated question of whether the court should videotape or televise its oral arguments. Had you pressed us, we’d probably have acknowledged a vague aversion to the idea, but we wouldn’t have been able to formulate a clear argument to back it up.
Last week something happened that crystallized our opposition. On Wednesday the court was hearing arguments in a case called Octane Fitness v. Icon Health and Fitness. The parties are litigating a patent dispute in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; the question before the high court, as summarized by ScotusBlog.com, is “whether the Federal Circuit’s promulgation of a rigid and exclusive two-part test for determining whether a case is ‘exceptional’ . . . improperly appropriates a district court’s discretionary authority.”
It’s the sort of case assured of making no headlines outside of specialty publications. But the proceedings were interrupted when a spectator, Noah Kai Newkirk, rose and allegedly delivered a “harangue or oration” in violation of federal law. (He entered a not-guilty plea Thursday.)
In the alleged harangue, Newkirk denounced the court’s 2010 free-speech ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and demanded that the justices rule in favor of the government in the pending case of McCutcheon v. FEC, which challenges certain statutory limits on campaign contributions.
“Newkirk is a member of a group called 99Rise, which says on its website, www.99rise.org, that its aim is to ‘get big money out of American politics,’ ” Reuters reports. The “longtime progressive activist” told the wire service that “99Rise was formed by a small group of people in Los Angeles who were inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests.”
Newkirk’s disruption was illicitly captured on video, apparently by a confederate who had smuggled a camera past court security.
Like streakers at football games, you get more if you televise ’em.