Will Supreme Court Keep Its Front Doors Open?

The Supreme Court's longstanding plan to permanently close its majestic bronze front doors to the public for entering the Court now appears to be "under review." That was the implication of a comment made today by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer after a panel discussion at the National Gallery of Art on the role of art and architecture in public buildings.

One theme of the discussion, sponsored by the Foundation for Art and Preservation In Embassies was how to strike the balance between security and openness in the design of public buildings in the post-9/11 era. When he was chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in the 1990s, Breyer won applause (and some criticism) for pushing the plans for a new federal courthouse in Boston toward innovative design and public access. With pride, Breyer said today that the waterfront courthouse hosts more than 200 major public events a year. "It's a community building, and why shouldn't it be?" Breyer asked. "It's their building, it's not mine."

After the panel discussion Breyer was asked about the Supreme Court's pending plan to close the front doors at the top of the marble steps in the front of the Supreme Court. Instead of that legendary entryway, the plan has been to create a new entrance at the side of the steps, presumably to centralize screening of visitors on the Court's ground floor. Under the plan, the public would still be be allowed to exit from the bronze doors and go down the marble steps.

"The precise form of access is something under review," Breyer said in response to the question. Asked if this meant the doors would remain open, Breyer would not elaborate.

Closing the front doors for entry was made part of the Court’s $122 million modernization project, launched in 2003 in the post-9/11 climate of heightened security consciousness. 

The front entrance of the Supreme Court has long had symbolic importance as a portal to justice, with the words “Equal Justice Under Law” etched into the marble architrave above it. 

In July 2005, when he was nominated to the Supreme Court, John Roberts Jr. recalled the times he would enter the Court as an advocate. “I always got a lump in my throat whenever I walked up those marble steps to argue a case before the court, and I don't think it was just from the nerves,” Roberts said. 

The late chief justice William Rehnquist in his book about the Court also recalled standing before the Court “for a moment to admire” the main entrance, then climbing the “seemingly endless steps” when he arrived in 1952 to clerk for Justice Robert Jackson. 

Members of the public wait in line – sometimes for hours or days for a major oral argument -- to enter the front of the building. The bronze doors weigh 1,300 pounds each. Employees and those with business at the Court usually enter at already-existing ground floor entrances at other sides of the building.

Comments

[John V. Siskopoulos, Esq.]

Not only should the doors remain open, but I do think it's time that oral argument should be televised. The President holds weekly news conferences. The Senate and the House televise their proceedings. The Supreme Court should come out of the shadows and into the light.