Three Texas Supreme Court justices took questions from the public this week at an event in Fort Worth. Justices Rebeca Huddle, Debra Lehrmann and Evan Young attended the roundtable at the Fort Worth Club.
Before the pandemic, the Texas Supreme Court would hear oral arguments at schools and universities twice a year in an effort to show the public how the court works. The justices say the meeting this week gave people another opportunity to learn about the process.
"The purpose is to educate people about the third branch of government and discuss issues that have to do with how the three branches interact," Lehrmann says.
"I think the people of Texas, if they could be in our conference and see how the nine justices truly pour themselves out to get to the bottom of every single case, they would be proud," Young says. "I can assure people the work that comes out, that final draft, has gone through so many eyes so many times with the single goal of trying to make our law clearer, better and easier to understand so people will understand what the law requires of them and also know whether they need to change it."
Young says events like the roundtable can also show people the role of the judiciary.
"The job is just to say what is the law. It's not to say what the law ought to be or what we would want it to be," he says. "The clearer we can be in telling the people of our state what their law already is, the easier it is for them to change it if they want to."
Questions included people asking about the shift to virtual hearings during the pandemic, how justices research cases and how they formalize decisions.
Lehrmann says about 1,500 cases will be filed each year; the Texas Supreme Court takes about 150.
"It takes a whole lot of time to whittle that down to that ten percent," she says. "We are doing a huge amount of reading, a huge amount of study."
One person asked about the leak of a draft from the U.S. Supreme Court to Politico regarding abortion.
"When I first read about it, it was just unimaginable to me," Huddle says. "Working inside, understanding the court's deliberative process, it was just unbelievable something like that would happen."
The justices say the release of the draft could have "huge ramifications" because people may now ask why one justice's opinion might change before a final ruling. They say opinions frequently change, but a justice would not change his or her opinion as a result of the leak.
"Everyone weighs in, everyone has an opinion," Huddle says. "Sometimes that results in the majority changing a little bit. Sometimes it changes completely. That is the normal process. There is change to the draft over the course of its life. That needs to happen, and our judiciary needs to allow full-throated conversations and full-throated opinions and discussions about what the law is. We need to be able to trust we can have confidential conversations in order to get to the very correct, best answer at the end of the day."
They say a majority opinion may change to a dissent over the course of several drafts. They say they expect Chief Justice John Roberts to insist the investigation continue until the person who leaked the draft is identified to prevent others from trying the same thing.
"Everyone has some issue they regard as paramount importance that transcends the institutional role. The next person might be a second amendment type of person; the next person might be a death penalty type of person. Maybe it'll be about some corporate deal and a merger," Young says.
Related
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow NewsRadio 1080 KRLD