On the Docket converts Supreme Court audio into AI-generated visuals
Of the three federal branches of government, the U.S. Supreme Court is the most secretive. Only two parts of its decision-making process are public — oral arguments and opinion announcements. While citizens can attend argument sessions or, since 2020, stream them in real time, opinion announcements are not live-streamed and the audio from them is only released to the National Archives months after the Court’s term ends each June.
Professor Timothy R. Johnson (political science and law) and his partners — Spooler, Idib, and Jerry Goldman (professor emeritus, Northwestern University) — are bringing the U.S. Supreme Court to life in a way never before seen outside the halls of the marble palace.
On the Docket brings to life opinion announcements using audio directly from the Court along with their AI-created video of justices on the bench as they address some of the nation’s most pressing legal issues.
University of Minnesota professor Timothy R. Johnson is an internationally recognized expert on the U.S. Supreme Court’s oral arguments and decision-making process. He has published more than 70 articles, book chapters, and publicly facing papers, two monographs, and four books about the Court. He has worked with Goldman for more than two decades on making transcribed audio of the Court’s oral arguments accessible to the public and, in 2009, first delved into opinion announcements when he analyzed what factors lead justices to read their dissents from the bench.
“We hope this combination of authentic audio, provided by the National Archives, and our generated videos will increase public understanding and appreciation for how the nation’s highest Court makes decisions,” Johnson said. “It has been an amazing opportunity working with Jerry, Spooler, and Idib.”
Professor Jerry Goldman added: “In the 25 years I spent building the OYEZ Project, I came across recordings of opinion announcements. Some were recorded occasionally but, starting in the early 1990s, these sessions were routinely recorded but never publicly shared. It dawned on me that we could realize these recordings as videos with the help of AI. Since Professor Johnson and I had collaborated for many years, it seemed natural for us to team up again for this endeavor in the public interest.”
“After the remarkable reception of Brown Revisited, the Spooler team was thrilled to apply cutting-edge AI video creation techniques to actual Court audio and transcripts. The result enables new audiences to engage with these important civic moments,” said Spooler CEO James O. Boggs.
Award-winning Sicilian design firm Idib Group provided innovative web design, focused on user experience, to deliver a visually powerful creation and share it on social networks. "Our design strategy was driven by a single question: how do we make people feel like they're sitting in the Supreme Court chamber? Every design decision, from the visual language to the social media strategy, was made to remove barriers between citizens and their highest court," said Francesco Stagno d'Alcontres, founder and digital director at Idib Group.
About Timothy R. Johnson
Johnson is Horace T. Morse Distinguished Professor of political science where he teaches courses on Supreme Court decision making, civil liberties, constitutional law, and American politics. He continues to write about oral arguments and has overseen more than 250 undergraduate research projects and trained or advised more than 30 graduate students.
