My dad and the Supreme Court

This past weekend, I traveled to Washington DC to watch my dad argue a case in front of the United States Supreme Court. It was a pretty amazing experience. To start the morning off, it had snowed about two inches, a relatively uncommon occurrence in DC. This put a twist in our attempts to get to the Supreme Court. My step-mom and I had planned on taking a cab, but given the weather, there weren't any driving around in the streets. The hotel front desk offered to call, but couldn't tell us how long we might have to wait. It turned out that we extremely lucky because, on a whim, a man who runs a car service out of our hotel, decided to come to work that morning. He drove us and said that however much we wanted to pay him would be fine. I didn't know people who were that wonderful existed! So we made it.

When we arrived we got to go in the "special" door because we were guests of a lawyer. The line here was supposed to be much shorter, but there was a school group there that day. I did some investigating and a lady with the school group told us to go in front of all of them. Immediately inside the door, there is a metal detector and an x-ray machine that you have to go through. The security guard who was running the operation was very severe. He insisted that the door remain closed and that you must walk through the metal detector at a "normal" pace. After the first security check we asked the information desk where we were supposed to go next. Since we had reservations, we went upstairs, checked our electronics, jackets, bags, etc. into lockers and then gave our names to the man in charge of the reservations. We then stood in a line and were eventually led into the courtroom. Wow, what a room. Here is a picture I found online:

When we got inside, it was packed. At 10:00 things got rolling. During an oral argument, the two sides have 3 minutes to present their position on the issue. The court already has the background information, contained in a series of briefs submitted several months before the argument. Here's the link: http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=District_Attorney%27s_Office_for_the_Third_Judicial_District%2C_et_al._v._Osborne
So he talked for about 45 seconds and the Justices started asking questions. They were brutal. Then when his time was up, the other side got to do the same thing. After my dad's time was up, I was sure that they had beaten him up pretty well, but after the other side finished, I realized that my dad had done a wonderful job.

Here is the transcript from the argument: it's Case #08-6 http://supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts.html
My dad also had the opportunity to do an interview on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101277033
And one with APRN: http://aprn.org/2009/03/02/high-court-hears-alaska-criminal-dna-case/

It's hard to get a picture of what was going on from the transcripts. The time of the argument is the first time that the Justice's have every discussed the case, so there was a little bit of interrupting going on. It was also apparent who had read all of the material and who had not. At one point one of the Justice's refers to a "new" law or procedure, and another one corrects him saying that it's not new. It was also very obvious that they did not all agree with each other.

This was an amazing experience. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to go and I am extremely proud of my dad for all the work he did and for sticking with it even though the whole experience was extremely stressful for him.