ABOUT

Discover how the project reconstructs impactful U.S. Supreme Court opinion announcements using authentic audio recordings and AI video production.

ORIGIN

Following the success of Brown v. Board of Education Revisited in 2024, Professor Jerry Goldman and Professor Timothy Johnson decided to address a fundamental challenge for the modern Court: how to engage younger audiences with the critical decisions that shape our society and institutions when the Court bans cameras in the courtroom.

In 1955, the US Supreme Court began recording audio of its public sessions. However, no photography or videography is allowed in the courtroom. Only the select few in attendance have been able to see the Justices rendering their decisions…until now. When the Justices release their written opinions, they summarize their views for the public in attendance. The Court does not share these recorded sessions on its website. Months later, it delivers copies to the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, MD.

On the Docket celebrates the institution of the U.S. Supreme Court and seeks to engage a new generation of civic-minded citizens with the key jurisprudential questions of our day. Does the President enjoy blanket immunity from criminal prosecution? Can the federal courts universally block Executive Orders? The consequences of these and other Supreme Court decisions directly influence the society and culture in which we live.

The project goal is an accurate, 'deeptruth' visualization of the Justices' majority and dissenting opinions in the most important recent Court decisions. The authentic source audio, spoken by the Justices, helps ensure historical accuracy and integrity in our re-creations of these significant events. We hope this fosters a deeper public understanding and appreciation of these pivotal decisions.

PROCESS

To achieve the mission of an empathetic, accurate visualization, the project began with authentic audio recordings stored and hosted by the National Archives. The project team used state-of-the-art AI production techniques to establish and refine a creative workflow that translates audio into high-resolution synthetic video. The result is a full-length video of each majority and dissenting opinion, along with key excerpts optimized for social media distribution.

A visual and interaction design effort created a beautiful, easy-to-understand user interface for delivering videos. In the pursuit of transparency, special effort was made to label synthetic media.