Credit: SupremeCourt.gov

The Supreme Court yesterday unveiled the much-needed redesign of its website at SupremeCourt.gov.

The old SupremeCourt.go

The site was once a bit of an eyesore, and difficult to use -- more appropriate for a small rural parish's website than the online home of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Information was difficult to find, and required an intimate familiarity of the court's jargon and proceedings to make much sense of. How's the redesign? From a non-attorney's perspective, the site -- design-wise -- has been updated to about, hmm, 2002. Then again, the highest court in the land does not like to rush blinding into the future. The early aughts is perhaps the best we could have hoped for. As for functionality, it's easier now to find some of the site's key elements, but there's still plenty of work to be done. But first, here's how SCOTUS described the launch in a press release:

Visitors will find that the Supreme Court Web site has an updated and more user-friendly design. The site continues to provide online access to the Court's slip opinions, orders, oral argument transcripts, schedules, Court rules, bar admission forms, and other familiar information. But it also has several new features, including enhanced search capabilities, an interactive argument calendar, improved graphics, and additional historic information.

The blog of Legal Times finds key elements of the site's content pleasingly easier to get to now:

Several important pieces of information about the Court that used to take several clicks to get to are now brought forward, for easier access.

And Daniel Schuman of the Sunlight Foundation, which notably did a volunteer mock redesign of the Supreme Court site, notes several improvements, along with several areas where things could still be better:

• The webpage needs to provide more information about what the Court is doing, explaining legal terms of art, and grouping relevant information together (such as information pertaining to a particular case).
• It should incorporate a user-friendly advanced search engine.
• Use machine-readable formats (not just PDFs).

But, that said, the most important part of the Supreme Court website took place under the hood, as they say. For more than a decade, the Supreme Court hasn't actually had control over their own online home. They relied upon the Government Printing Office to manage the site, shipping changes GPO's way anytime they wanted anything posted or tweaked. A handful of Supreme Court justices trekked to Capitol Hill recently to ask for appropriated money for an in-house site. They got it. Now, going forward, the staff of the United States Supreme Court will actually run the website of the United States Supreme Court. That should make things easier, and suggests that this week's redesign was just the start.

Update: Alex Howard does an in-depth review of the new Supreme Court website -- and notes that the new site breaks a number of old links.

This is a bit dated in blog-time, but hey, the snowy east coast is reason enough to pause, reflect, and dig back into things that happened weeks ago. Someone intimately involved with the Prop 8 case happening out in San Francisco makes the case that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's dissent on the question of whether that trial should have been broadcast marks the very first time in the history of the United States Supreme Court that an online organizing action was specifically cited in a high court opinion. Here's Breyer:

The court initially relied on a provision in the United States Code that permits District Courts to prescribe rules “without public notice and opportunity for comment” “[i]f the pre- scribing court determines that there is an immediate need for a rule,” and if the court “promptly thereafter afford[s] such notice and opportunity for comment,” [bunch of legal stuff, yadda, yadda.] Then, on December 31, the court revised its public notice to ask for comments directly. By January 8, 2010, the court had received 138,574 comments, all but 32 transmitting the proceedings.

Those 138,574 comments, give or take, came mostly as the result of an organizing push that groups like the Courage Campaign, based in California, took part in -- which goes to explain in part why the comments that poured in ran 4000-to-1 in favor of broadcast the marriage trial's proceedings, which the Supreme Court came down somewhat more closely, at 4-to-5. Interesting that Breyer didn't cite the source of the Hussein-ian numbers. (Interesting too, is that pro-same-sex marriage backers' success in organizing here is somewhat the opposite of the dynamic during the Prop 8 battle itself, where the advocates of the proposition out hustled, out organized and messaged those folks who wanted to ban same-sex marriage in California.) But it does mark some sort of moment in time that a people-powered political push organized almost entirely online makes its way into an argument in the highest court in the land.

The gauntlet has been thrown. Has your online political action reached the status of inclusion in a Supreme Court opinion, or does this deserve the honor -- the historic honor -- of being deemed the first time digital politics on a mass scale has become a point of argumentation for the nine in black? By all means, let us know.

It's interesting to see how the Internet factors into the Supreme Court's earthshaking decision in the Citizens United case to overturn a century's worth of jurisprudence restricting corporate and union money in politics. I'm going to skip over all the details of the case, and the equally troubling question of judicial activism, as these are really topics beyond the purview of techPresident and are already being hotly debated elsewhere.

You're probably aware that the Supreme Court is the reason why you didn't see any post-trial highlights from Day One of California's major Prop 8 trial on last night's news. This is the big trial that's made news mostly because it's being litigated by the odd couple of Ted Olson and David Boies, known better as the opposing quarterbacks during a little case known as Bush v. Gore. Federal judge Vaughn Walker had arranged a planned to post time-delayed video footage of the proceedings on YouTube, but the berobed nine stepped in at the last minute yesterday and, with the dissent of only Justice Breyer, ordered Walker's court to stay away from YouTube (and, also, to quit from its plan to stream the trial to other federal courthouses).

The Supreme Court's one-page ruling is here, including Breyer's statement that, in his judgement, the claims made by the anti-YouTube crowd "do not show a likelihood of 'irreparable harm.'"

So, were the Supreme sans Breyer just reacting out of fear and oldtimeyness in telling Judge Walker to step away from the YouTube? Slate's Emily Bazelon considers whether it's that -- or whether there are legitimate concerns that those citizens who are testifying against same-sex marriage shouldn't have to face the disapproval of anti-Prop 8 folks across the country (and in their neighborhoods) after they come in for criticism on Countdown. Those witnesses didn't sign up for that when they agreed to part of the case, the thinking goes, and no matter where you come down on the issue of same-sex marriage, the American people have an interest in protecting the freedom for people to say unpopular things. Bazelon, fleshing out the case against YouTube'd courts here:

There is an argument on the other side. The Judicial Conference of the United States, the governing body for the federal courts, made it clear in general terms most recently in a letter to Congress last July. The conference is worried about "interfere[ing] with a fair trial," by affecting how the people who participate in the trial behave. "Witnesses might refuse to testify or alter their stories," the judges who make up the conference wrote. "Embarrassing personal information" about them could be revealed. And the witnesses might grandstand. In opposing the YouTube broadcast for the gay-marriage opponents, lawyer Charles Cooper argued that even though this is a civil trial, and the witnesses are appearing voluntarily, they could suffer intimidation or harassment. Cooper brings up the "hostilities and harms" that followed the disclosure of the names of people who donated to the campaign for Prop. 8, the ballot measure banning gay marriage that the Perry suit is challenging...

In the end, though, Bazelon for one seems to come down on the side of openness. The trial could have huge educational value, particularly in a case, like this one, where so many competing interests are at stake. YouTube or no? It's a difficult question, and one that one hopes the Supreme Court is really wrestling with right at the moment. They've given themselves until 4 p.m. tomorrow to make a decision on whether or not Judge Walker can stick to his plan of streaming and YouTubing the Prop 8 case, one that might prove to be an earthquake to the marriage landscape in this country.

The Supreme Court tends to treat the idea of cameras in the courtroom as a gnat, a nuisance to swat away. They've never, generally speaking, demonstrated much of an open mind for the idea that the inviting the public into the courtroom has a great deal of redeeming social value. Perry vs. Schwarzenegger might prove to be as much of a landmark case on the "open courts" front as it is on the marriage one. Stay tuned. (Photo credit: ken mccown)

A very intriguing development in the ongoing debate over what to do with video from the major Proposition 8 trial starting in San Francisco today: SCOTUSblog's Lyle Denniston is reporting that the U.S. Supreme Court has just decided this morning, against the objections of Justice Stephen Breyer, to enforce a delay in distribution of the video, including the planned posting to YouTube. According to Denniston, the delay will be in effect until at least 4 p.m. on Wednesday. That means, at the very least, that today's opening day of the case, which seeks to judge California's same-sex marriage restrictions unconstitutional, won't be watchable to anyone not sitting inside the federal courthouse in San Francisco until later this week at the earliest.

Lined up against broadcasting live or slightly delayed video feeds of the case are folks who have argued that since this is a trial -- with real live witnesses and the like -- video available for all the world to see could be damaging to same-sex marriage opponents. Part of the context here is another recent battle over putting the names of pro-Prop 8 petition signers online. Also part of this story: the fact that the Supreme Court has traditionally resisted calls to broadcast its own proceedings. Breyer himself has spoke about his concerns that videos of arguments made by lawyers before the Supreme Court would reveal only "2 percent of the matter" to the public.

This debate over video in the Perry vs. Schwarzenegger case is one well worth keeping an eye on. What's more important here, transparency and the educational value of watching the judicial branch in action? Or shielding those who might have unpopular politics from public opprobrium? Judges, from the federal circuit in California all the way to the Supreme Court are attempting to strike a balance that just might come down to making core judgments about when the gap between "real time" and posting time makes a YouTube video no longer worthwhile.

This is something of a personal obsession, but indulge me. Minnesota Democratic Senator Herb Kohl just asked Judge Sonya Sotomayor about what, as a sitting Supreme Court justice, her take would be on letting cameras into the high court so that the rest of us can watch and learn from the court's now-closed proceedings. Alas, Sotomayor more or less punted on the question, though she left a bit of an opening for open court advocates to cherish. She'd be a brand new justice, she said, and new judges tend to "consider taking new approaches."

The Senate Judiciary Committee's website is now playing host to the full 172-pages of Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor's vetting questionnaire. The Sunlight Foundation's Paul Blumenthal thinks that this is just the second time that a high court nominee's backgrounder has been posted online, and the White House is bragging that Sotomayor et al finished her document in a modern record of 9 days ( "It took Chief Justice Roberts 13 days, Justice Ginsburg 15 days and Justice Alito 30 days.")

But it's the posting of more than 200 other supporting documents -- everything from court reports to hearing transcripts to speech texts to grainy scans of print interviews with Newsday, the San Juan Star, El Diario La Prensa, and dozens of other publications -- that is striking. The White House appears eager to flood the zone with all things Sotomayor. Doing so saves us all some of the trouble of LexisNexis-ing, and perhaps themselves a delay in the process.

Still, if they really wanted to streamline this thing, a suggestion: hyperlink those endless PDFs to the relevant parts in Sotomayor's questionnaire itself.

Besides the fact that it's an eyesore and it doesn't function very well...nope, any way you slice it, the website of the Supreme Court of the United States doesn't match up with the institution's imminence, history, and unique role in the American democratic system. (A trivial but telling case in point: the two search filter options on the site are "Supreme Court Files" and "Supreme Court Docket Files." This is clearly not a website dying to please.) Simply put, SupremeCourtUS.gov needs help. That's where Sunlight Foundation designer Ali Felski and policy counsel Daniel Schuman come in. They've done one of their patented redesigns on the SCOTUS site.

First, the problem, in brief:

The current web site has many shortcomings. It doesn’t contain briefs by the parties and omits all but a few relatively recent Court opinions. Its navigation is a nightmare and its design fails to incorporate modern techniques such as RSS feeds and XML. Much information is unnecessarily locked in PDFs.

Then, their vision for a redesigned high court site... (Keep reading)

Just about 24 hours have passed since President Barack Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to serve as the next justice on the Supreme Court. What's the web making of the pick? Somewhat surprisingly, the Internet hasn't exactly been a celebration of instantaneous reaction to Sotomayor's selection. All things considered, all has been relatively quiet on the web front. Are folks laying in wait for more opportune moments? Or is this nomination fight all but over before it began, pending any unforeseen revelations? Who knows. But let's do a grab bag review of Day 2 of the Sotomayor nomination.

Not Up for a Fight? Elected Republicans and their close circle of aides and allies are telling Politico that absent any significant new news about Sotomayor, they're not eager to do battle over her nomination. "The sentiment is overwhelming that the Senate should do due diligence but should not make a mountain out of a molehill...If there's no 'there' there, we shouldn't try to create one." Meanwhile, the conservative Heritage Foundation posted on their Foundry blog under the title "‘Advice and Consent’ Takes Time" that they're not prepared to rush the process: "The President hopes to have his nominee confirmed by Congress’s August recess -- an aggressive timetable. But that may not comport with the Senate’s constitutional role and responsibility." The conservative group Judicial Watch, so aggressive in pursuing the alleged wrongdoings of the Clinton Administration, put out a tepid press release saying that "If Judge Sotomayor shares Obama's activist judicial philosophy, U.S. Senators who want to protect the Constitution will have no choice but to oppose her nomination." Judicial Watch also posted Sotomayor's financial disclosure forms from 2003 to 2007.

Off-Message Retweeting. The Washington Post's Greg Sargent reports that the RNC's new media director Todd Herman retweeted a Twitter note from Newt Gingrich in which Gingrich made the arguement: "Imagine SCOTUS nominee 'my experience as a white make makes me better than a latina woman' new racism = no better than old" -- a reference to a speech made by Sotomayor in which she said that the diversity of her life experience shapes her judicial approach. Sargent reports that while RNC chair Michael Steele has urged the party to avoid "knee jerk reactions," the GOP is now refusing to say whether it agrees with Gingrich's characterization.

Ad Wars. Not much is happening on the Google Ad front, as of yet. The sole Google Ad now running for "Sonia Sotomayor" is from the pro-immigrant group America's Voice. Even there, the tangential case they're making is that Sotomayor's nomination doesn't reflect all that much on the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform under the Obama Administration. Google searches for "Supreme Court Justice" don't return any ads of yet. The Washington Post reported that the Heritage Foundation was ready yesterday with an imminent Google ad buy, but they have yet to pop up.

The Video. One copy of a video clip of Sotomayor saying that "court of appeals is where policy is made, and I know this is on tape and I should never say that," has been viewed on YouTube 184,000 times since it was posted at the beginning of the month.

Doing a Deep Dive. Over on the conservative blog Hot Air, Ed Morrissey is picking over Sotomayor's record from her many decades on the court and examining the Republican pushback against her nomination to the Court of Appeals back in 1998. The New York Times has posted copies of some of her more notable court opinions, as well as the full transcript from her "A Latina Judge's Voice" lecture which has led to Gingrich's criticisms. Meanwhile, Sotomayor's Wikipedia entry is unlocked, lengthy, and largely positive.

Driving the Nomination from the White House. The Above the Law blog's David Lat has the back story on "a conference call between a senior Administration official and several reporters, to discuss the Sotomayor nomination." The White House pushed a talking point for allied groups to use in responding to critique's of Sotomayor's decision in the New Haven firefighter case: "They can't criticize her as a judicial activist on the one hand and then attack her for applying Second Circuit law on the other."

Infrastructure Building. People for the American Way has a mild-mannered press release calling on senators to conduct "a smooth, fair confirmation process." The new Coalition for Constitutional Values, which includes progressive groups like the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, have launched ConstitutionalValues.org; the site is centered around a new web ad that calls attention to Obama's call for a justice whose work is informed by his or her life experience. The Washington Post reports that the Latino blogosphere is gearing up for a fight, and the National Organization of Women has announced it will launch as "Confirm Her" campaign.

The New York Times Kate Phillips has more. And you can follow along the confirmation process -- and compare it with Supreme Court vacancies gone by -- with CQ's nomination tracker.

When John McCain made the surprise pick of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, the McCain camp dallied in getting a biography of the little-known Alaska governor up on to their official campaign website. In that absence, observers turned to Wikipedia and elsewhere on the web to make immediate sense of the choice. The Obama White House seems to be taking the opposite approach with the choice of Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme Court. Her official selection was coupled at the start with the White House's attempts to quickly define the nominee and her nomination.

The Obama White House, for example, is emailing out 14 different high resolution pictures of the judge (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14), including shots of her as a young child at a birthday party, at her 8th grade graduation, with her nephews at Yankee Stadium, and in her judges robes. They've posted a photo of her mother, Celina Sotomayor, choking up at yesterday's announcement ceremony that will only not melt your heart if you don't have one. The White House website features a lengthy bio of what they're calling Sotomayor's "American story." Then there's the fact that the WhiteHouse.gov team blogged about an previously-made video from the Law School Admission Council on Sotomayor called "A Wonderful Life." It's an important point: the Obama White House's blogospheric savvy-- plucking third-party material from the web that makes their case and using their high-profile platform to promote it -- may stand them in good stead as Sotomayor's nomination process moves along.

Conservative opponents have pledged to do battle on the web over Obama's judicial pick. The Judicial Confirmation Network's (JCN) chief counsel Wendy Long told the Washington Post, "We need to do this because the White House really has the bully pulpit...The American people, if we don't do things like this, are really only getting half the story.'' JCN has launched AboutSoniaSotomayor.com, featuring talking points against her nomination. The centerpiece of the site: a YouTube clip in which Sotomayor, attending a conference, makes the statement "court of appeals is where policy is made." She quickly noted that she probably shouldn't say such things "on tape." Expect the video to get major play.

The back-and-forth over Sotomayor's nomination has of course just begun. Google, for example, returns no text ads yet for a search on her name.

A potentially interesting note, though: ConfirmThem, the site launched by the conservative blog Red State around past battles over judicial nominations in the Senate, is featuring a post by one "Feddie" (as in, the Federalist Society) that doesn't exhibit much stomach for a fight over Sotomayor. "My take on the appointment?," he or she writes. "She's the best of the worst." That's relatively high praise.