Court is Now in Session!

I found out that anyone can attend a session of the Supreme Court, as long as they're willing to stand in line to get in. So on Monday, October 5th, I went to give it a shot. I went with three friends, and we were in line by about 7:20am, to hear the 10am case. At 7:30 everyone in line was given a red card with a number showing our place in line. I was #46. Once we had a number we could get out of line and go to the cafeteria or find a place to sit down. It was a lovely autumn day, which was nice, since we waited in line for almost four hours. At about 9:30am the first 40 people in line were taken in to attend the 10am hearing. We didn't get in, so we waited another hour and were able to attend the 11am hearing. I didn't understand most of the legalese that the lawyers presented to the judges, but it was interesting to see the Supreme Court judges in person. The female justices asked the most questions of the lawyers, in case you were wondering. Though Chief Justice John Roberts talked quite a bit, too.

The media was set up outside the supreme court building. It was Justice Sotomayor's first day on the bench to hear cases.

Some protesters came to entertain those of us standing in line. They were protesting Gitmo.

After the session we went had lunch in the cafeteria in the basement of the Supreme Court building, and looked around the building a bit. This is the spiral staircase inside the Supreme Court building. All in all a very interesting day to see our court system at work!