The Supreme Court’s Class Photos
Retour sur la tradition de la « photo de classe » des juges de la Cour Suprême américaine.
En octobre dernier, Brett Kavanaugh rejoignait la Cour Suprême des États-Unis, qui décide de la conformité des lois à la Constitution américaine. À cette occasion, les neufs juges de la Cour Suprême ont pris la pose devant les photographes pour une nouvelle « photo de classe » officielle. Un journaliste du New York Times nous propose de découvrir cette tradition historique.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh stood in the back row, on the far right, beaming. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, recovering from a fall, sat in front of him, grimacing. Off to her right, Justice Stephen Breyer appeared to chuckle at a joke he had just recalled. It was the latest installment of an awkward and illuminating tradition at the Supreme Court: the group photographs prepared when a new justice joins the court. Last November, the justices took their places, in strict order of seniority, and tried to smile for the cameras.
2. About a dozen news photographers were there to document the occasion, supervised by a court
official with a stopwatch. “It’s a tradition that all the photographers in town look forward to getting a crack at,” said Doug Mills, a photographer for The New York Times, “because it’s a historical picture no matter what.”
PHOTOSHOPPING THE JUSTICES 3. A Supreme Court photographer also takes pictures. Until recently, the justices voted on which of those would be the official photograph. “It is not clear when the justices began voting for their preferred pose, but the process goes at least as far back as the Taft court” in the 1920s, Franz Jantzen, one of the court’s photographers, wrote in 2015 in The Journal of Supreme Court History. If there were 5-4 splits, they have not been reported.
4. The 2017 official photograph, according to notes to an exhibit at the court, included an innovation. It looks like a class photo, but it is a composite. “This is the first official color group photograph for which color film was not used,” the notes said, “and the result is the first to combine each of the justices’ individual choices, from several poses, into a single image.”
NEW FACES IN OLD PLACES 5. The Supreme Court is resistant to change. For the past 50 years, the elements of the group photographs have been identical. They are taken in the court’s east conference room, in front of red velvet drapes. Some traditions are older. Since 1899, the justices have arranged themselves in order of seniority. These days, that means the chief justice is seated in the middle, with his four longest-serving colleagues seated at his sides. The four more junior justices stand, with the newest on the far right.
6. The first group photograph of the justices in their robes was taken in 1867, by Alexander Gardner. The justices have assembled 52 more times since then, generally whenever a new member joined. In 2003, after the justices had been together for nine years without a change in personnel, they added a bonus sitting. JUST MINUTES TO CAPTURE HISTORY 7. The news photographers have to work fast. Decades ago, they were allowed three minutes, but Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who was not known for his patience, thought that too generous. He gave the photographers two minutes. Last November, Kathleen Arberg, the court’s public information officer, used a stopwatch to count down the allotted 120 seconds. The main thing photographers want in those two minutes is a formal group portrait in which the justices look at the camera.
8. “The tough part is that most of the time their heads are turned and they’re talking to each other,” said Bob Daugherty, a retired Associated Press photographer. “You like the animated stuff, but you do want something where the faces are identifiable in a group shot.” That can be hard to achieve, particularly if Justice Clarence Thomas is in characteristically gregarious form. “Our nemesis is Thomas, because he’ll start laughing and joking with whoever is next to him,” said Dennis Brack, who photographed the justices for many years for Black Star Publishing Co. There were other challenges, Brack said. “Our biggest nonfan was Thurgood Marshall,” he said. “His solution was to go to sleep.”