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reprint or license thisChief justice presides over USC visit
By ADAM BEAM
abeam@thestate.com
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts presided over a mock trial at the USC School of Law on Friday and afterwards engaged in a candid conversation with students about judicial philosophy and life as the country’s top lawyer.
Four students, including three from Columbia, argued a case dealing with Fourth Amendment search and seizure issues before Roberts and a panel of the state’s top judges.
For about an hour after the session, Roberts walked in front of the bench and answered questions from the several hundred University of South Carolina students who got out of classes for the day to see the chief justice.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., helped arrange Roberts’ visit.
Here’s a sampling of what Roberts had to say at USC:
On confirmation hearings for judges:
“You don’t get too much of value from the process. People in the Senate, I think, need to sit back and try to see well, why are we doing this? What is the point of this exercise?
“Certainly we need to have a debate about nominees and we have to exercise our constitutional function.
“(Lawmakers) need to sit back and see whether or not some reform of the process makes sense.”
On interacting with other Supreme Court justices:
“All I can tell you is it was extraordinarily uplifting. I had no idea what I was going to find. For all I knew, they were flipping coins back there.
“Nobody speaks twice until everybody has spoken once. I’ve already had to rule on whether or not facial expressions amount as talking twice.”
On the chief justice’s responsibilities outside of court:
“I’m on the board of trustees for the National Gallery of Art. I kind of had fun with that at my first meeting. I said, ‘I don’t know much about art, but I’ve always liked that painting of the dogs playing poker, can we get it?’ Unfortunately, you can tell some of the people weren’t quite sure I was joking.”
Reach Beam at (803) 771-8405.
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