A Lesson in the Law

In the U.S. Supreme Court last week, a venerable tradition was unexpectedly discarded. As of April 26, announced Chief Justice Earl Warren, the court will no longer hand down all its decisions on Mondays; they will be released when ready--on any day of the week the court is sitting. The court offered no explanation for its action. But to veteran observers it seemed clear that the press was being given a break.

So many complex decisions have come on Mondays that reporters have occasionally been less than accurate. A notorious example was the 1962 school-prayer decision, when much of the press declared that God had been banished from the classroom and the Supreme Court was heaped with abuse it did not deserve. Now that decisions will be strung out during the week, reporters should have ample time to study and assess them more accurately.

Their job has already been made easier for them in another way. Since last November, law professors have been preparing summaries of significant cases before the Supreme Court, with the hope of eventually producing 100 per court term. Boiled down to four or five pages of plain English from briefs running sometimes to 400 pages of legalese, the summaries have come as a welcome relief to hard-pressed court reporters.

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