brainwagon

The inner workings of the Supreme Court have always held a certain fascination for me, and since my wife got me an iPod, I’ve found two audio resources to help me learn.

The first is oyez.org, an online archive which contains many mp3 files of oral arguments before the Supreme Court, all licensed with permissive Creative Commons licenses. During a recent trip, I listened to the oral arguments concerning the disposition of prisoners at Guantanamo and the case of Jose Padilla. They also have many recordings from older and historic cases. It’s often pretty hard to understand the proceedings unless you are well versed in the fine details of the legal arguments, but it is nifty stuff nonetheless.

The other is the Barnes and Noble Portable Professor Series entitled Shaping Justice – Landmark Cases of the Supreme Court. It is an eight CD audio book which covers the history of the U.S. Supreme Court and details 13 of the cases which have shaped the power and scope of the Supreme Court. It can be a bit sketchy at times (I’m still not sure I really understand what “substantive due process” actually refers to) but the choice of cases are intriguing, and several seem particularly timely, especially Korematsu v. United States, 1944 which details the decisions regarding forced internment of Japanese citizens in World War II.