It’s time to delve into our favorite thing – SCOTUS minutiae. As SCOTUSblog readers know, we host a live blog on opinion days. Almost immediately after an opinion is announced, it becomes available on the court’s website, and a member of the SCOTUSblog team will then post a link to it on the live blog. This is labeled a “slip opinion.” However, as we’ve explained, Amy is typically in the court’s press room when opinions come down, and she (along with the other reporters present) receives paper copies of the opinions from the court’s Public Information Office staff. The paper copy that Amy receives (which is also available to members of the public about 30 minutes after opinion announcements) is labeled a “bench opinion.”
But what in the world is the difference between a “bench” and a “slip” opinion? Why the heck aren’t they just called … opinions?
Let’s start with bench opinions. This practice emerged when the court moved into its current home in 1935 and adopted a “hand-down” approach to issuing decisions. Specifically, several members of the press sat at desks between the justices sitting on the bench and the counsel’s podium. When a justice announced a decision, members of the court’s staff would hand paper copies to these journalists. The journalists would then send the copies of the opinion down a floor to their coworkers in the press room through pneumatic tubes (picture the tubes used at a bank drive-up window – or in the movie Brazil). From there, the reporters would write their stories about the case (or cases) as quickly as possible for publication. Although the pneumatic tubes and reporters’ desks in the courtroom are gone (Chief Justice Warren Burger had them – and the reporters – removed in 1971 when he had a curved bench installed), the term bench opinion remains.
So what is a slip opinion? Slip opinions were originally opinions printed on loose “slips” of paper that could be inserted into printed volumes of cases. The slip opinion typically came out later then the bench opinion and might have corrections or edits that did not appear in the bench opinion – although now that a version of the slip opinion is posted online they are generally identical. That said, the online slip opinion may be updated from time to time for any errors as the publication process is completed, which occurs when these are placed into the volumes of the United States Reports. Slip opinions are also available in the Public Information Office (at least those from the current term).
But what, today, is the substantive difference between a bench and slip opinion? The answer is not much. While historically there was some delay between the bench opinion being distributed and the release of slip opinions a few days later, technology has shortened that delay to become almost nonexistent. So then why keep that particular distinction at all? Because, above all else, as the court’s website states, the Supreme Court “is deeply tied to its traditions.”
