Alito: Supreme Court Should Never Worry About Popularity When Deciding Cases

The Associated Press reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court should never concern itself with popularity and must remain above the fray when there is strong public reaction to its rulings, Justice Samuel Alito said Monday in a luncheon speech.

“It’s fine if we are not all that popular,” Alito told an audience of more than 1,100 lawyers and business people. “There is a reason why the Constitution gives federal judges life tenure. We are supposed to do our jobs without worrying whether our decisions are pleasing to anybody.”

Alito spoke to a joint meeting of the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches and the Palm Beach County Bar Association, drawing the largest audience ever for such an event, organizers said. His staff did not permit the speech to be videotaped or audio recorded, and Alito noted that the justices remain somewhat behind the times in terms of using such common technologies as email.

The court also does not permit oral arguments to be televised. All the arguments are released on audio by the end of the week they occur, and on rare occasions, a recording is released the same day.

“We are an old-fashioned institution, and in my opinion that is a good thing. We are not exactly on the cutting edge of technology,” Alito said. . . .