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U.S. Supreme Court Steps Into U.S. Election Quagmire
WASHINGTON (AFP) - With a stroke of his gavel, Chief Justice William Rehnquist on Friday opened a historic session of the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether to get entangled in the legal quagmire surrounding the deadlocked U.S. presidential election.
"The honorable, the chief justice and the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Oyez ! Oyez ! Oyez, " proclaimed Dale Bosley, the court's marshal.
"All persons having business before the honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention for the court is now sitting. God save the United States and this honorable court," he declared.
Under the imposing ceiling supported by 24 45-foot (15-meter) marble columns, some 400 people witnessing history in the making hold their breath.
One by one, the nine black-robed justices make a solemn entrance and take their seats. In line with tradition, Renhquist sits in the middle, flanked on each side by his eight associates seated according to seniority.
The session marks the first time since the court was established 210 years ago that it gets involved in an ongoing presidential election process.
Lawyers for White House rivals George W. Bush and Al Gore spar over whether the Florida Supreme Court overstepped its bounds by extended the deadline for certifying the decisive Florida election results and allowing manual recounts.
Bush maintains he won the November 7th U.S. presidential vote after being certified the winner of the decisive contest in Florida with a 537-vote margin over Gore.
But Gore is challenging the Florida results in court and demanding a hand recount to determine who should succeed Bill Clinton in the White House.
Among those watching the proceedings are former secretary of state and Gore top adviser Warren Christopher, senators, representatives, one of Gore's daughters and even judge Charles Burton, the chairman of the election canvassing commission of Florida's Palm Beach County.
There are also lawyers, law students and ordinary citizens, many of whom had to spend the night outside the court.
As is customary no cameras or private tape recorders are allowed inside the Court. But the Court took the unprecedented step of allowing the release of an official audio tape recording and Internet transcript after the end of the hearing
Bush's lawyer Theodore Olson is the first to take the stand.
"Two weeks after the November 7th president election, the Florida Supreme Court overturned and materially rewrote portions of the carefully formulated set of laws enacted by Florida's legislature to govern the conduct of that election," he says in a calm voice.
Even for the best legal guns, a grilling by the Supreme Court is a major challenge.
The justices are relentless in their questioning, peppering Olson with technical and philosophical queries, preventing him from developing counter-arguments and ensnaring him in his own contradictions.
"I don't know, your honor," a chastened Olson replies.
Olson also gets embroiled in a sharp exchange with justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who objects to criticism of the Florida Supreme Court by the Bush camp.
"I do not know of any case where we have impugned a state supreme court the way you are doing in this case," she says. "I mean, in case after case, we have said we owe the highest respect to what the state says, state Supreme Court says."
"I don't mean to suggest, and I hope my words didn't, that there was a lack of integrity or any dishonesty by the Florida Supreme Court," Olson replies.
"What we're saying, that it was acting far outside the scope of its authority in connection with an exercise of power that is vested by the Constitution of the United States."
The justices meanwhile dissect the intentions of the framers of the U.S. Constitution, giving their interpretation of Article II of the Constitution and raised questions about the significance of an obscure 1887 law.
Gore's lawyer Lawrence Tribe, a respected Harvard University law professor, who has made 30 appearances before the nation's highest court, also comes under relentless questioning from the justices.
Once in a while, some spectators lose track of the legal jostling and peek at the some of the overhead murals depicting eminent jurists, philosophers and religious figures such as Confucius, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Moses and Mohammed (saw).
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