I got all four of my wisdom teeth extracted yesterday at noon, so I’ve been in-and-out of consciousness for the last 24 hours. During a brief stint of consciouness, I looked at some of the other cases the Court handed down on monday and it could have been the drugs, but none of them really interested me. What did interest me, however, was a paper by David Stras of the University of Minnesota Law School over at SSRN. I found out about his paper from his post over at SCOTUSBlog this morning.

Professor Stras argues in favor of circuit riding for Supreme Court Justices for a few simple reasons. First, he argues that circuit riding allows a unique opportunity for Supreme Court Justices to meet everyday individuals and converse with local leaders. I have no doubt that a 19th century Justice would benefit from traveling to his or her respective circuit court. In today’s digital age, however, trans-continental communication has become more and more commonplace and the need for personal contact has fallen accordingly. It is no longer necessary for a Justice to travel to another part of the country to keep in touch with local issues, he need only visit a local newspaper’s website or call up a colleague in the area. The increasingly prevelance of televised and web-distributed judicial conferences has given the public a new way to keep in touch with the inner-workings of the court in the same way that talking with Justices had a century ago.

Stras also argues that the Supreme Court no longer has the heavy caseload that it had when Circuit riding was abolished. Stras is correct in one sense- The Court has taken fewer and fewer cases every year for the last few decades. While that may be the case, the Supreme Court Justices have not suddenly found themselves from judicial obligations. The Court his already finding itself clogged with cases to handle before it ends its term at the end of June. Adding circuit riding duties would only cause a further decrease in the number of cases taken each year to an almost anemic level.

One of my biggest concerns is the intervention of the Supreme Court in circuit court jurisdiction. If Supreme Court Justices were allowed to rule on cases in the Supreme Court that they also ruled on in the Circuit Courts, an obvious conflict of interest could arise. Conversely, if they were forced to recuse themselves from cases they had heard earlier, they would be disinclined to rule on important cases in lower courts and the Supreme Court would find itself without some of its most renowned jurists.

Related posts

• WSJ Op-ed on Judicial Elections (March 22, 2008)
• Which Justice Is The Most Talkative? (November 8, 2007)
• When Can We Expect The First Substantive Opinion? (November 28, 2007)