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Law360 (April 3, 2020, 3:15 PM EDT ) The U.S. Supreme Court has postponed its April argument session in light of the coronavirus pandemic, a spokeswoman said Friday, casting further uncertainty on the ability of the justices to complete their work by the usual summer recess in July.
The U.S. Supreme Court said it is considering how to reschedule cases before the end of the term after canceling argument sessions in March and April due to the coronavirus pandemic. (AP)
"The court will consider rescheduling some cases from the March and April sessions before the end of the term, if circumstances permit in light of public health and safety guidance at that time," spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement Friday afternoon. "The court will consider a range of scheduling options and other alternatives if arguments cannot be held in the courtroom before the end of the term."
For its April session, the court was planning to hear four separate arguments from April 20 to April 22, and five additional arguments the following week from April 27 to April 29. Between March and April, the court must now find time to rehear 20 cases.
Arberg said the court would continue resolving the cases that have already been argued, as the justices have been holding their regular conferences and issuing order lists about what to do with petitions and other motions.
Among the more high-profile disputes that the court has postponed are a trio of cases involving President Donald Trump's financial and tax records that the Manhattan district attorney and a U.S. House of Representatives panel are seeking as part of their investigations. Those cases were originally supposed to be heard March 31.
The court's decision to postpone the April session now cancels the upcoming oral arguments scheduled for April 29 in a pair of consolidated cases examining the lawfulness of religious and moral exemptions to the Affordable Care Act's requirement for employer health plans to cover birth control.
The April session was also supposed to feature some perhaps more obscure, if equally important, legal questions that could affect the litigation landscape. The justices were expected to dive into the issue of specific personal jurisdiction in a pair of consolidated cases involving defect and negligence suits against Ford Motor Co. on April 27.
The last time before this term that the Supreme Court postponed oral arguments due to a public health crisis was during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, according to the court's public information office. Prior to that, the court shortened its calendars in 1793 and 1798 after outbreaks of yellow fever.
The cancellations have caused uncertainty for litigants and the advocates who were originally supposed to argue before the court.
Kelsi Corkran of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP had been slated to argue March 30 in Torres v. Madrid
, a Fourth Amendment case involving a police shooting. Now, she's not sure when the court, or even if the court, will reschedule the case — or what that would look like."I've been keeping on my toes by working on the reply brief, but I've got an exceptionally large set of flash cards to keep me refreshed while we wait for the sitting to be rescheduled," she said in an interview before Friday's announcement.
"So long as the virus is still a concern, any in-person argument makes me nervous. The podium is surprisingly close to the justices, and none of us should be anywhere in their vicinity until the health risk has passed," Corkran said. "But I would be disappointed if they canceled argument altogether and submitted the cases on the briefs."
In Congress' $2 trillion stimulus package, it budgeted $500,000 for the Supreme Court, which a court spokeswoman said would help with "software licenses, bandwidth and hardware such as laptops, monitors, mobile phones" as well as "longer-term upgrades to the court's telecommunications infrastructure necessary to maintain widespread telework for a longer period of time."
Since the pandemic started, many court watchers have called on the Supreme Court to embrace technological solutions, such as teleconferences and live audio streaming, as workarounds to holding public arguments.
The court's decision to postpone yet another argument session Friday did not inspire confidence in some that it's on its way to embracing those technical solutions.
"This is getting ridiculous," said Gabe Roth of the judicial watchdog group Fix the Court. "If the Supreme Court can conduct its weekly conferences remotely, which it has been doing for weeks, it can conduct its remaining arguments remotely and allow the public to listen in."
--Editing by Orlando Lorenzo.
Update: This story has been updated with more information about the now-postponed April session.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
