Welcome back to the Dirt Show, big, big news day since we last spoke, especially for

Supreme Court watches of which I am one.

I have been reading Supreme Court decisions and watching the Supreme Court since May of

1854, that's I guess 68 years ago, that was the month in which the Supreme Court came

down with its unanimous decision in Brown versus Board of Education, ordering the desegregation

of public schools all over the country, that was the first Supreme Court decision I ever

read and I've been reading Supreme Court decisions ever since.

I must have read over a thousand Supreme Court decisions, probably more because I've taught

many of them.

Of course, I've litigated cases myself in the Supreme Court, you know, they give you

a quill when you're in the Supreme Court to remind you that this is an ancient institution.

And it's an ancient institution, of course, goes back to the Constitution itself, which

has always had a tradition of secrecy.

I was a law clerk on the Supreme Court for a year, a law clerk on the Court of Appeals

the year before, and the one sacred oath we took is nothing gets out of the chambers of

the justice or the judge, not only during the time you're serving, but even years later.

I mean, it's been now, I don't know what, 55 years since I was a law clerk on the Supreme

Court and I still keep secrets about who originally voted for what I was there during a very exciting

year.

I was there during the year that John Kennedy was assassinated, but I was also there

during the year when the Supreme Court came down with many of its most important decisions

really of the 20th century civil rights, civil liberties, criminal justice, you name it.

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