Supreme Court Master Clock Problems

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Time Gets Away From the Supreme Court

Tony Mauro
The National Law Journal
November 03, 2009

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  There was an Alice in Wonderland quality to the Supreme Court Monday morning, where clocks throughout the building were off-kilter -- apparently triggered by an unsuccessful effort to turn them back when daylight-saving time ended early Sunday morning.

When the Court convened at 10 a.m. sharp, the ancient clock hanging above the justices read 6:20, as did clocks throughout the building (they're all controlled remotely, apparently.) Before the first oral argument began, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. took note of the glitch, though he did not explain it or apologize for it. Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said later that a malfunction in the Court's master clock made it impossible to reset the other clocks in the building.
Roberts told spectators that lawyers are sometimes admonished not to look at the clock during oral arguments. "That is particularly important today," he said.
Roberts' predecessor and mentor William Rehnquist notoriously got upset when advocates, obviously trying to pace themselves, would glance up at the clock above the justices as they responded to questions. Rehnquist once scolded a lawyer, "You are here to answer our questions, not to look at the clock!"
The warning Monday from Roberts was well-taken, because the clocks kept changing as the argument proceeded, at one point reading 10 a.m., and then a little after 11. Lawyers kept their own time, and never looked up.
Throughout the second argument of the morning, the hands on the clocks continued to spin slowly and intermittently. The times on the two clocks at opposite ends of the courtroom sometimes didn't even match each other, with the one above the bench at one point reading 5:00 while the one above the main door read 6:00. Court electricians were said to be working on the problem.