Important place, nine justices and only them meet around a table in the Conference Room. Aty discuss the cases heard oral arguments and begin the process of reaching a decision of the court. Sit at one end and it wraps around the table in order of seniority. I remember the first time i set foot in the room. It is pretty daunting the first few times. Because thats where the actual work and the Decision Making takes place. We dont have any observers in the Conference Room. Nobody can enter the room who is not a justice. No secretary, no law clerk. Not even a message bearer. I have to be professional and accurate and fair and each of my colleagues feel the same way. So there is a little tension and excitement in the room. We love it. Were designed to do that. The job is no good if you cant argue. I initiate the discussion for an argued case. I will say, this case is about this and the arguments are so and so. And i think we should reverse or affirm and heres why. Sometimes in an easy case it will take a minute. In a hard case, itll take longer. One of the best rules, and i think it is true for any group, the rule of the conference is nobody speaks twice until everyone has spoken once. I was most jr. , so that helped me. But i think it is a good rule. Everybody feels they have been heard. It is great to go first because you can tell the rest in a persuasive statement. What you think is the case. But when youre on the end of that queue, you do have a certain advantage, that is, you know what the others think. It is not really an exercise in persuading each other. It is an exercise in stating your views and the rest of us take notes. That is the function. You take notes so if you get assigned to the opinion, you know how to write it in a way that will get four other votes besides your own. I was the most Junior Member of the court for 11 years. It was always when we had our conferences, it was no one else was in the room, i had the special job of opening the door in case somebody knocked. Somebody knocked, usually they forgot a paper. Or coffee for justice scalia. I have been doing this for 10 years. I think im good at it, i said, im not sure. We get on very well. The nine of us do. Who wants to be a part of an institution where everybody dislikes each other . It is one of the great things about the court right now is that even when people disagree , and sometimes disagree sharply, there are important questions, hard questions that people have strong views on, but that they could understand that that everybody is trying to do the best they can and everybody is working really hard and everybody cares a lot about the law and about this country , as well. I just finished my 18th term. I still havent heard the first unkind word in that room. And you think what we decide. Life and death, abortion, execution. War and peace. Financial ruin. Government relationship with citizens. You name it, we have decided it. Those discussions lead the justice to conclude tentatively to affirm or reverse in their particular case. Now that vote is not cast in concrete. Youre not walking on wet concrete yet. You can change your mind. It is not win or lose. Reversal or affirm. It is what rationale you use. What principle you use to teach something. If the case is close, 54, lets say youre on the side that prevails, the majority, theres not highfives. Theres a moment of quiet and respect. My most important responsibility is the responsibility for assigning opinions. Once the votes are in. If im in the majority, get to determine who will write that opinion in the case. Thats an important responsibility. You want to make sure the assignment is given to the justice whose view commands the most support on the court. You want to make sure the work gets done on time, so someone is slower than others, that person gets heavy assignments earlier on. Some cases are more interesting than others. You want to make sure those are fairly distributed. Some cases are harder than others. You want to make sure thats fairly distributed. We get all sorts of different issues. You want to make sure that each justice has a nice mix. Not one justice just doing criminal cases or Something Like that. A lot of factors go into that decision. It is a very important part of it. When we get through, sometimes they send coffee in and a sweet roll or cookies or something. As the opinion writing assignments are handed out, a room exists upstairs in the Supreme Court which helps the justices and their staff consult precedent, through the words written in the countless legal volumes housed here. A room filled with not only books, but the symbolism of the great lawgivers, and admired by those that enter into the grandeur. If they want to be the most beautiful room in washington, they ought to go to the library on the third floor that nobody hardly sees today. Thats not so much roman classicism as renaissance classicism but it is a breathtakingly beautiful room. The library is probably one of the most special places in the building. The archways in the library represent science, law, industry. There are shields directly above the archway and they represent various printer symbols. When i was clerking, i spent a lot of time in the library. It was a gorgeous library. You wouldnt go there to read Supreme Court cases because those would be in our own chambers, but when looking for secondary materials of different kinds, we would go to the library and work with the librarians. It was a wonderful place to work. It was also a quiet place to work. The library is one of the special rooms in the building. Unfortunately it doesnt get used as much as it was when the building was first opened. That goes back to the way the court changed the way it does things. When the court first moved into the building in 1935, they would literally call the docket each day in court. You didnt know which case was necessarily going to be argued that day. You had an idea, but a lot of attorneys had to be onsite, because if the case came up, they needed to be ready to argue. You have the lawyers lounge which is where they stay. It is why you have the magnificent reading room in the library. The spaces reserved for the use of the members of the bar and the court staff only. There have been a few times when i had to use material from so many cases that we occupied two or three of those tables, leaving the books out, so that the law clerks and i could go up there and sit up in the reading room and actually refer to all of those passages in the preparation of the opinion. With precedence and cases researched, in quiet chambers below this library, justices go about the process of writing the opinions, both majority and dissenting, that eventually make their way to the public as the final decisions of the court. It is an ongoing process, you write a first draft. You figure out, i need to know more about how this case fits in. You read the case. Youre going back and looking at the briefs and bringing the law clerks in and bouncing ideas off them. What is wrong with it, it is a continuation of the oral argument process. Deciding your view of the case itself is terribly challenging. Some of the issues are really tough. Some are not. Some are clearcut. But some are enormously challenging. Some cause you to want to wait yourself until you see other views expressed before being firm in your own view. It is a help to see it in writing. And it is a help when you have to write to put it down in words rather than just think it through. It is a real challenge. We have to convince ourselves, when i sit down and write an opinion, the first thing i have got to do is convince myself. A lot goes in the waste basket. And then you have to convince others. Again, this Court Reminds you of the fact that you have this job to do. The way we write something out, you sometimes learn things about the case that you didnt fully appreciate and understand before. And there have been more than one case in which i have changed my views when i was writing the opinion. As i have often put it, i do not enjoy writing. I enjoy having written. I find writing a difficult process. I sweat over it. I rewrite and rewrite again. Before the opinion goes out, the law clerks say, it is going out this afternoon, you want to read it one last time . Yeah. I guarantee you every time i read it, i will change something else. So it finally has to be wrested from my grasp and sent down to the printer. I usually have to write two or three drafts pretty much from scratch before im reasonably satisfied were going somewhere and then we edit them back and forth and after that, i circulate it and hope four other judges join. If so, i have the court. We realize that one of us will have to write out a decision which teaches and gives reasons for what we do. The point of writing an opinion is to command allegiance to the result. We have no army. We have no budget. We do not have press conferences and we dont give speeches saying how wonderful this was and how bad the majority. We dont do that. Were judged by what we write. I would like my opinions to be as clear as possible. I would like people to pick them up and understand them. I like them to be as thoughtful as possible. I would like to write the kind of opinions which really do address the competing arguments, dont try to sweep competing arguments under the rug, and try to address them fairly and for forthrightly. Now, what if theyre assigned to write for the majority opinion circulates an opinion draft . Then the other eight have a chance to weigh in. And normally they start acting within a day or two. Theyll read it and say, dear sandra, i join. Or dear sandra, ill wait for the dissent. Or dear sandra, i want to give more thought to this before i act. Or dear sandra, if you will change a, b and c, i would join. It is Something Like that that happens. If theres a dissenting opinion to be written, often people will wait and look at the dissent before casting their vote. Now, once the dissent circulates, it could be so powerful that it causes someone who tentatively had been with the majority to change their view to some extent. So, all of this the details are worked out not around the conference table. It is in the writing of the opinions that the persuasion takes place. Lets say i would go the same direction but i would go 80 yards. But the majority only wants to go 60, and 60 would decide the case, too. So i would write the opinion to go 60, and not say anything about i would also go the other 20 yards. Now if i were writing a concurrence or dissent on my own, i would write the opinion in a way reflects that i would go 80. Were going the same way, i could not write an opinion that went in a direction that was different from what i actually thought we should go. The dissents are rigorous. And they dont pull punches. I think it ultimately improves the quality of the majority opinion, but it is something you have to anticipate. Dissents are more fun to write. I have got to say that. When you have the dissent, it is yours. You say what you want. If somebody doesnt want to join, who cares . You dont want to join, fine. This is what i want to say. When youre writing majority, you dont have the luxury. You have to craft it in a way that at least four other people can jump on and actually, you try to craft it in a way that as many people as possible will jump on. Which means accepting some suggestions, stylistic and otherwise, that really you dont think is the best but nonetheless, you know in order to get everybody on board, you take them. If youre just starting out and someone says, i eight votes and the ninth comes in. You often say, you know not quite go fly a kite, but the tip vote is morses is more susceptible when you are changing vote. The job is to get to it. We are not here to spin out theory. Were here to decide things, the job is to decide, we decide. Opinionce alito has the of the court this morning. This is our moment. The guy from reuters is always the most pushy to get through because he wants to get on the wire service. You better get out of his way. The rest of us dictate or write. You remain with the issues on monday. Here. The Supreme CourtPublic Information office simply says, here is the material, make of it what you will. We will make sure that you have the material, and that is an enormously invaluable function. It is also very nice not to have the sense that somebody is trying to spin you. I personally like to go up and hear the opinion announced from the bench. I like the pageantry of that. I like to hear the justice himself or herself announce what is in the opinion. Then i race down the stairs to the court press area, where we all have our laptops set up now and i write a first version of that story, so it can get on the internet site. Readers really want to know as soon as possible what the court ruled and potentially what that might mean. A lot of people say, it is a very secretive institution. No, it isnt. It is an institution that virtually does most of its work in the open. The work comes in and moves out the front door. Youre a few steps away from the courtroom. Near the courtroom are two rooms used by the justices to occasionally speak to the public as well. From Thurgood Marshalls retirement announcement to events with other justices over time, one can get a glimpse into the workings of the court and life here. It is the private view of the ornately decorated east and west Conference Rooms and their portraits of past chief justices that helps one understand the history of the court. Room,the east conference we have the first eight chief justice and how he came to the Court Appointed by George Washington and then he gets elected to be governor of new york and decides that is a better job than being chief justice of the United States. He resigns and becomes governor of new york. Then you have a beautiful portrait of john marshall. Heres the chief justice himself in a grand portrait similar to the one of George Washington in the capitol building. And theres a chance to talk about john marshall, to let people know his story and that carries through over into the west Conference Room with the more modern justices, where you have the two instrumental justices in this building. William howard taft on one wall and Charles Evans hughes above the fireplace looking at each other through time. I like to go sometimes on a quiet night to the Conference Rooms because the portraits on the walls are all my predecessors as chief justice. To some extent, you look up at them on the walls with a degree of awe and appreciation for what they been through. And theyre probably looking down at me with either bemusement or amazement. Each of them has a special story to tell, not only personally but with the institution of the court. You look up at marshall and appreciate the importance for him of having the Court Function as a court. Moving the court from a situation where each justice wrote his own opinion and instead saying, no were going to have an opinion of the court , which was vital in establishing the court in its present form. Right next to roger taney, the most unfortunate of my predecessors, the author of the dred scott decision. You saw he saw this great problem of slavery. He was going to solve it. This is how he was going to solve it and it was tremendously misguided and injured the court for generations to come. That helps inform how you look at your own job. You walk down further and you see morris and wait. Morrison weight. He had a thousand lawyers and law professors and if you said who morrison wait is, only a couple would know. Thats a good lesson. The job doesnt give you a prominent role or historical significance just because you hold the job. You look at Melville Fuller and understand his role of making sure the Court Functioned collegially. Then you see hughes and recall his vital role. You think about the importance of the independence of the judiciary. Things like that. From time to time, i find it a useful reminder of the role of the court and the role of the chief justice. Forward, thises building remains timeless and the work of the institution will still be tied to past president and tradition but in many other ways, it is a forever changing place, designed by the human being serving as justices, all trying to interpret a document over 200 years old in the context of an everchanging world. Judge judges unless you know the materials that theyre working with. You cant say, oh, this is a good decision and this was a good court, simply because you liked the result. It seems to you that the person that deserved to win won. Thats not the business judges are in. We dont get it right all the time. This is a Human Institution and it has the same susceptibility to error as every other Human Institution has. We have 300 million people, probably 900 million points of view. I mean, people in this country dont agree about a lot of things. And despite enormous disagreement, they have decided to resolve their differences under law. What i do get a fulfillment from is living up to the oath to do it the right way. And to know that on behalf of my fellow citizens, i have tried to be faithful to their constitution, to our constitution. What i see i think has been very inspiring, because i think you have nine people who are working really hard and who are trying the best theyre able to do something really important in this country. I think the most important thing for the public to understand is that were not a Political Branch of government. They dont elect us. If they dont like what were doing, it is more or less just too bad, other than impeachment happened, orever conviction on impeachment never happened in the court. They need to understand when we reach a decision, it is based on the law and not a policy preference. We have the constitution and the laws, i think they mean something. They dont necessarily mean what i want them to mean in every instance, they mean something and i think the people of the United States trust us to interpret and apply those laws fairly and even handedly and objectively, and thats the great responsibility that we have. The Supreme Court has been respected by the american people. I think it has been one of the institutions of government that is most respected, so it isnt size that makes the grandeur or the specialness of the place, it is what it symbolizes and what goes on here that makes it special. And it is. While the pandemic continues, members of congress are working from their home districts. Of my votes are at the Automotive Industry and the majority of the others are the front line workers. I hope people do not forget these are the people who helped put groceries on their table and demanding a 15 per hour minimum wage. They are now keeping us afloat. This is a very serious issue. What ive been telling people is please listen to the state authorities and local food local authorities and Health Experts and stay away from people right now. I see this as a war and the u. S. Is at war with the virus. Stay in touch using the updated congressional directory that has Contact Information you need to contact directly with your u. S. Representatives. Ater your copy online today cspan store. Org. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of the federal response to coronavirus pandemic with white house briefings, updates from governors and congress, and the daily program, washington journal, hearing your thoughts about the crisis. If you missed any of the live coverage, watch anytime on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Here is some of what is coming up. Q a is next. Does discusses his life as a video game developer. At 9 00, british Prime Minister hiss johnson takes part in first question time in the house of commons since recovering from the coronavirus. After that, andrew cuomo update Coronavirus Response efforts. [gunshots]