TOPEKA—Chief Justice Lawton R. Nuss announced today that the Kansas Supreme Court will start video streaming its oral arguments live on the internet, beginning Monday, August 27.
The court will hear oral arguments daily as part of its August docket from 9 a.m. to noon Monday, August 27, through Friday August 31. At oral arguments, each side’s attorney makes a presentation to the court and answers questions from the justices. The video stream will be available via the Judicial Branch website at www.kscourts.org under the “Supreme Court Oral Arguments” heading.
“With this video stream, the court will be even more open in its work. Now everyone, regardless of their location, can observe the justices in session,” Chief Justice Nuss said. “Next week’s docket provides an excellent example of the benefit this technology brings to our citizens because the appeals include the one involving the construction permit of the proposed Holcomb coal electricity generating plant,” the Chief Justice said.
The appeal involving the longstanding Holcomb plant controversy will be argued at 9 a.m. Friday, August 31, 2012.
Chief Justice Nuss said “the court has a long history of seeking ways to make its work accessible to the public, beginning with allowing news cameras in the courtroom in 1981. We followed that by establishing one of the first state court websites in the country in 1996, and then by audio streaming oral arguments in 2004.
“In 2011 we took the historic step of hearing oral arguments at four locations beyond our courtroom in Topeka. They included sessions at the Statehouse in Topeka, and in Salina, Greensburg, and Wichita. The sessions were well attended. They helped us achieve our goal of showing Kansans who we are, what we do, and how we do it,” Chief Justice Nuss said.
“We think the video streamed court sessions can also serve as educational opportunities for the state’s K-12 schools, colleges and universities, and our two law schools,” he added.
Kansas will become the 23rd state appellate court to offer a video stream of oral arguments, and one of only 13 that stream live. The Kansas Supreme Court will be video streamed live and later archived on the Judicial Branch website for later viewing.