," tony mauro. later, a look at some of the offense last month with australia's parliament with the removal of predator tony abbott. ministerl of prime tony abbott. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," "national law journal" senior correspondent for the supreme court tony mauro. he talks about the supreme court's new term. , when did youuro start covering the supreme court? actually1979, which is longer ago than any of the court

justices have set on the court. so i have -- sat on the court. so i have been there awhile. brian: what brought you there? tony: i went to law school for a brilliant four week career and then i went into journalism and i was transferred to washington and my editor said if i could handle the new jersey supreme court, i could handle the u.s. supreme court. i have covered it ever since and it is the best beat in town. brian: why? tony: because there is such for friday that we have to cover. we have a death penalty case one day, same-sex marriage, you know, some of the biggest issues facing the country. it is never boring. the other thing is, unlike the

white house beat and the congressional beat, we are not really dealing with politicians in the same sense that they are politicians. the justices are not elected. they actually have very little interest, generally, in talking with the press. but they are trying to solve these problems and these disputes and it is just an interesting, fascinating process. and i like that better with having to interview someone from congress or covering the white house where there are 200 people writing the same story. so it has been the same -- so it has been challenging in that way. brian: so the court has been out since june or july? tony: mid-june. brian: are you going to be back in the court? tony: i will. brian: what is the first thing that you are going to look for?

the: since we have not seen justices together in a long time, since the end of june, i will look for a health check, as you might call it, which sounds ghoulish, that it just checks on how they seem and if there are any bad feelings that you can see between them. the justices always say that they are cordial and friendly, even though some of the language gets very strong. so i will be looking out to see if there are any, you know, cold shoulders or tensions that you can see in the interactions between the justices. brian: any of them doing something this summer that caught your attention? tony: some of them travel overseas, that is not unusual. some of them went to -- gave , you know, a range of audiences, law schools, local civic events. i can't say there is anything

really striking. ,ustice ginsburg, i should say operaded and opera -- an that has her as one of the characters. she didn't anticipate in it, but it is the scalia ginsberg opera, that is actually the title of it. it is an opera that looks at the odd friendship between scalia and ginsburg. they are opposites ideologically but they are very good friends. brian: last week, the pope was in town and spoke to the congress. we has a video that shows the nine justices -- that shows out of the nine justices of the supreme court, four came. where were the other five? [laughter] several, we tracked them

down, but several had out-of-town engagements that they could not break. scalia and thomas were pretty much unaccounted for and you can only speculate. , butare both catholics they are conservatives, and they might not have really enjoyed message or some of his message about immigration and other things. so maybe that's why they didn't come. don'tf the justices particularly enjoy those joint sessions of congress, especially when a state of the union address comes, because they feel like they are supposed to be neutral parties, so they might feel awkward copping for whoever is speaking. alito said that you feel like a when youant up there

are sitting while everybody else is standing and clapping. the justices sit and they keep their hands quiet. so it is not their favorite venue, i would say. particular, this pope's messages might have been something that some of the justices did want to talk about. things,o talk about two there are things i want to talk about. one of the things is age, the justices and how old they are right now. you can see on the screen that withart at the top ginsburg, and we go down, alito is 65, so to me or is 61, john roberts 60, and elena kagan is 55. what does that say to you in the history of covering the court? tony: well, the median age is

younger than some of the justices of the courts that i have covered before. 2010, justicel stevens was on the court and he was 92. brian: and he is still alive? tony: he is still alive and i think he regrets having retired because he is still very, very active mentally and keeps pining about what the current court is doing even though he has left the court. ,ut it does also tell me that and this is something i have been writing ever since i started covering the supreme court, that the supreme court really should be a big issue in the presidential campaign. justices in four their upper 70's or 80's going into the next term of president. for actuarial reasons, it seems

possible, likely, perhaps, that at least one or two cu justices tices will depart in one way or another. the public really should be thinking about that one when they decide who to vote for. about 16 months or so until the next congress comes in and after we go through a presidential election and all that. if somebody were to leave the court today, what is your guests -- guess? would congress approve a supreme appointment?al -- tony: i suppose president obama would be able to get someone through. it might not be his first choice because i think it would have to be someone very moderate or a middle of the road justice in order to get the votes you would need from the senate to confirm that person. later it gets,

the more likely the senate republicans would just sit on the nomination and just ignore it until the next president comes in. but i think if it was now, it is still such a long time before ,he next president takes office i think that the public wouldn't much like to have an eight -justice court for more than one year. brian: the other category we talked about is religion, and you talked about some of the justices were catholic. this is an unusual looking court from a purpose -- a perspective in the fact that three on the screen are jewish and there are six catholics. what does that say? tony: it really is remarkable. it is so different. they used to be protestants and protestants and protestants.

so generally speaking, there would be one jewish justice out of the nine, but that is just completely transformed. there are no protestants on the court anymore. there are three jewish justices now. know, i think the justices only say that they won't let their religious views interfere with their decision-making, and i think that is generally true. justice scalia once said that if --felt the death penalty that if his religion would allow legal, hepenalty would, he would resign from the court. now the pope, in fact, did speak out against the death penalty when he spoke to the congress and said that the death penalty should end, but that doesn't

mean that justice scalia would believe that the pope is correct. so we just own know how he feels -- just don't know how he feels. but in general, i think the justices set their religious views aside in terms of constitutional right and wrong. brian: as you know, we started a series here -- start a series here called "landmark cases" tomorrow night. you have to tell a story about how they commissioned you to basically write about this stuff. we've got a book that folks can get that is on the screen right there called "landmark cases" by tony mauro. how did this come about? tony: i got a call if you months ago and i was told you were about to do a series of shows on

landmark cases, and they have been using the book that i wrote years ago as the foundation or the informational source of a lot of this material that you are going through now. i was told that they would pull out some chapters from my book and turn it into a new book, this book. so that's how it came about. we had to get rights from the and then iblisher, updated each of the 12 cases that i have written about. the original book was called " illustrated re-decisions of the supreme court." brian: how long was that? tony: i wrote about 85 cases throughout history and the most recent edition was in 2005, so that would include things like, 't includea -- wouldn

things like, you know, a same-sex marriage case. so it was a little dated. -- picked itcks it with the constitutional law center. brian: let me show you a poll that we took. was, the percentage of the mass of american adults who are familiar with supreme court cases. six he 7% of people were 67%iliar with roe v wade -- of people were familiar with roe versus wade, aranda versus arizona, 27%, read scott versus it gets 12%, and then into king versus burwell, 6%, and the same-sex marriage case,

which was 5%, lautner versus new 4%, and baker versus car, 3% know what that is. i will just start with the bottom one. who was baker versus carr? tony: it is a little bit abstract but it basically has to do with districting and how the andes carve their counties areas for the purposes of election districts so that, you know, you would have cu -- have 100,000ricts with voters lacking a state representative and the next district with roughly the same you would have to

guarantee the same voting power, in essence, and what happened in the middle of the last century is there was a lot of migration. rural areas toom urban areas and that created a great disparity in populations between the districts. there was one los angeles district where one million people lived and they were electing one state senator and there was a rural district in california that had about 20,000 people in it and they were also electing one state senator. and that has consequences because it meant that urban interests were not addressed, particularly in state legislatures, and rural interests prevailed a lot. out a sort of

simmering problem in the political system and this case dealt with that. this was a case out of tennessee were a lot of this disparity was occurring and the supreme court decided that, in fact, there should be a one person, one vote concept. they didn't use that phrase, it, but peopleed would have roughly the same of voting power no matter where they lived. and earl warren, the chief justice then, said it was the most important decision he presided over. that is saying something since he was also the one who wrote brown versus board of education. brian: there are 12 different cases and the book and 12 different cases every week and of course it will be available in our archives.

which justice since 1979 have you known the best? just by being there and being in the hallways and being at different events? tony: well, that is a tough one because, like i said, the justices don't really have much use -- they don't really want you to get close to the justices. some reporters have relationships with justices, but i like to think that i shouldn't be making friends with the people i cover. it is a little harder to be skeptical if you, you know, have dined with the justices or their friends. but every reporter does it differently. say that the would ones i've known the best are heef justice roberts because argued before the supreme court for years, long before he became a chief justice, so we all knew him as john.

he was a very accessible, friendly person. a brilliant advocate, probably the best oral advocate i have seen in my time. but then as soon as he became chief justice, we couldn't call him john anymore, we would call him chief. break bread with him once in a while. he has lunch with the supreme court press corps every year in june. we always benefit from that even though it is off the record. brian: has he changed, though? tony: i think he has. for one thing, he is much less accessible to the press. he has become much more of a private individual and very guarded in the statements he makes and the appearances he makes off the bench. feelinghe has a real

that's he is the leader of this theitution -- that he is leader of this institution and he must not be seen as a public persional -- personal or celebrity kind of way. brian: let me show you a list of the justices who have been on the court. it starts with scalia who has been there 29 years and kennedy who has been there 20 and clarence thomas, 23, stephen breyer, 21, john roberts, 10, alito, nine, sonja so -- sonia sotomayor, five, etc. you have covered all of these folks and which one on the list do you know the least from a personal standpoint? tony: from a personal standpoint, i would probably say clarence thomas because he never

gives interviews to the press. at least as far as i know. literally, i could write a story saying he robbed a bank yesterday and i would ask for his comment and he would probably not comment. injust has no interest responding or participating in news stories. so i really don't have any personal connection to him. great as a public speaker when he does get out and talk to the law school audience or something like that. he really speaks from the heart and he bears his soul quite a bit. so we have learned a lot about him from those kinds of appearances, but nothing, nothing -- brian: what about media

coverage, you write, who reads your stuff? tony: i write for the "national for aurnal" and also subversion newsletter called "supreme court brief" that goes out to people who subscribe. so it goes out to an audience of lawyers, people who are -- lawyers seem to be really interested in the supreme court for obvious reasons. brian: ewing lawyers who don't even practice in front of the lawyers who mean don't even practice in front of the court? tony: people are fascinated with the court and they want to know about the opinions that they write. they are very interesting people said, a lot of them just want to be above the fray and to want to be seen as public figures, but certainly that isn't the case with some of them. justice sotomayor your is very alsoar -- sotomayor is

very popular on the circuit and justice ginsburg has turned into a sort of celebrity herself, you know, the notorious rbg. feisty and still at it and not about to quit by any means. brian: the program on the series "landmark cases" talks about marbury versus madison. i want to show you a video where they are talking about a letter from thomas jefferson. i want to get your quick -- tell as quickly about marbury versus madison. >> a family tragedy brought together thomas jefferson and abigail adams in june of 1804. abigail wrote to express her

grief on the death of jefferson's daughter. she wanted to remind jefferson that's -- that he had a good friendship with medicine. -- madison. he also spoken for the first time about the midnight appointments that had divided the pair. there was only one half of my life that gave me displeasure, and the appointment's office were personally unkind and they were amongst my most ardent political enemies and they laid me under the embarrassment of men whose views were to defeat mine. brian: first of all, what was the importance of that in history? tony: well, those judicial appointees that he was talking about were made by president adams just the day before president jefferson was going to

come into office, and the commissions never got delivered properly. justice marshall, who was also the secretary of state at the time, oddly enough, somehow there was some mixup and they didn't get their. but anyway -- get there. one of the justices who didn't get the position sued and it was called marbury versus madison. marbury was one of those judges. and the court said basically deserved somely remedy, but the remedy of congress has provided for this goes beyond the power of congress, the authority of that the supreme court was going to strike down that long. -- that law.

this was something the court had never done before. you know, declaring an act of congress unconstitutional. chief justice marshall said very the exclusiveat province of the jesus are very -- of the judiciary to state what the law is, and that is basically the foundation of how the supreme court operates today and why it is so important and it is still in some ways very cover seal. ial.ery controvers former arkansas governor mike huckabee has said, why should the supreme court have the final word on things like same-sex marriage? where is that britain? -- that written? brian: if you go to the supreme

court website, they are only going to meet in open fashion for 39 days starting tomorrow. 39 out of 365. they're only going to hear three or four, not very many cases. why so few days? tony: as they would tell you, the oral arguments and what goes on when they sit in open session is really a very small part of what they do. they spend a lot of their time, even in the summertime reading briefs and once the arguments occur, behind the scenes, someone will be assigned to write the opinion and they will be back and forth. there will be to sense, there will be concurrences, and that is really the substance of what they do. they don't need to be on the bench to do that. now as you and i have gone back along ways on this on the issue

of cameras in the court, i think we would agree that even though the oral argument is a small part of what they do, it would how the courtto operates, how the justices are thinking about these issues, and it would just be a tremendous educational benefit. you know, also something that i the justices shouldn't be able to deny, they should be able to say no cameras. brian: interesting, that was on the "stephen colbert show." i want to be careful because i don't have the exact quote but he was saying oral arguments are really only 5% in what goes on with the final decision. if it is only 5%, why are they so worried about cameras? tony: that is the flipside of the point that he makes.

they are worried about several things, one is as i said before, they don't want to be viewed as celebrities. they don't want to be on the nightly news. brian: but they will go on "the stephen colbert show?" tony: yes, especially when they have a book to sell. but part of that is personal privacy. they don't want to be recognized in the grocery store. again, this is not something that they are entitled to, i think they are not entitled to be that shy. they are in public office. they are working for the public. so they should be able to take some public, you know, notoriety. breyer saidstice this to colbert also, he said "we wear black robes for a reason."

that is to show that they are neutral people, they are not personalities and they want to convey that message and he thinks cameras would prevent that. clip: i want to show you a in a minute of the black robe of john marshall. the justice who has served the longest that is currently on the court is justice scalia, but i want to put on the screen the top of the list of the 15 a longest serving justices in history. and leland douglas still holds stevens years john paul could have stayed another two years and he would have been number one. hugo black's at 34, john marshall harlan is down the list, william rehnquist at 33.7 years. we have of the rest on their -- and john maclean is at

31 years, byron right -- i would 30, and byron white, antonin scalia who is still on the court at 29 years. a did a poll and more than a majority say that they should not have an appointed for life. what do you think? tony: well, i agree that life tenure is awfully long. founders established life tenure, people didn't live as long, so people might have served 20 years, but now justices could be on there for 40 or more years. you sort of lose tossed with a society -- lose touch with a society if you are up tehrhere

that long. so i think there is some merit to it. is that theof it justices don't have to worry about politics. they don't have to worry about their next job so they don't have to please certain factions one way or another. they can decide things independently and if they lose life tenure, that might be lost. brian: john marshall, who served 34 years and is the second longest-serving justice, at his home in richmond, there is the black robe that you referred to earlier. let's watch a little bit of this explanation. >> he would have worn this early in his tenure as a supreme court justice. it is during that time period that he makes the sanction it uniform, so to speak for the

supreme court justices to wear black robes rather than the red robes that the english court would wear. eachs pretty much up to individual justice what they wanted to wear prior to john marshall. many members of the supreme court were wearing pretty much robes,d english court many of which were read, and many were wearing modified english court wigs. justice marshall made it mandatory that they would all be wearing lack robes. -- black robes. this is mainly to say that we are responsible for interpreting the constitution, this is not a show of power. you think the black robes do for the people who sit in court like you will be doing tomorrow? tony: it is pretty imposing, i would say. there is something to say about

wearing black robes. neutral, andit is it kind of gives you the idea that these people are not in it just for their political preferences. it does remind me of one of the funniest moments since i have been covering the court. one day the session was about to begin and chief justice rehnquist came out with the other justices, and he had a robe on, a black robe, but it had a four gold stripes on each sleeve, and we were all aghast, no one had ever seen a justice wear something other than the strictly black robe. so it was just kind of hilarious, it seemed a little bit show we, and we learned later that he -- chief justice rehnquist, he had been to a

gilbert and sullivan play and he got the idea for the stripes from that. and he wore those until he died. part from very much a the tradition of the court. brian: another case that the landmark series will cover is matt v. ohio, and i'm going to go to the last paragraph on this because there is plenty of time to go into the details on it, but you had this in your book. does she pronounce her name dahlery? tony: i think so. brian: she moved to new york where she was convicted in 1974 on charges of selling narcotics. she was sentenced to 20 years in prison but her sentence was commuted. she died at the age of 91.

who was she and what was the case? and: she lived in cleveland she was just minding her own business in her apartment, apparently, and all of a sudden the police arrived and they wanted to search her apartment. they claimed that she had been involved in some kind of illegal gambling operation. then they kind of weight the waved warrant at her -- a search warrant at her, who knows if it was valid, but it was kind of extensive. they found some pornographic material and it turned out that she was convicted on obscenity charges. she was sentenced to jail. but she claimed that this search violated the fourth amendment which guarantees unreasonable

searches and seizures by the government. the lower court, i believe, actually found that it was an illegal search, but they allowed this evidence to be used against her anyway. the supreme court said that is not the way to go because if the , you know, violate the fourth amendment and a search of a person's belongings, the police should be punished in a way. allowed to not be use the evidence that they find in an illegal search in prosecuting that person. so the evidence should be excluded from trial. that is why we call it the exclusionary rule. it has been a powerful tool for professionalizing police.

it requires police to establish procedures and how to conduct searches. they have to get search warrants in order to not file it for them fourthnt -- violate the amendment. so she was the rosa parks of the fourth amendment. brian: and in your book, this was a 5-4 decision, and the supreme court chief justice -- and indeciding miranda versus arizona, you write about this. maranda himself was tried and convicted again, this time without using the confession against him. he was imprisoned until 1972 and went back to prison in 1975 after another run in with the law. he was murdered in a fight in

phoenix in a bar and according to some report, he had several miranda cards that his police case had inspired when they found him dead. who is he and what is this case about? tony: his name was ernest o miranda.- ernesto and this series looks at the people behind these cases and these grand pronouncements from the supreme court based on real people who have a dispute with the government, often, and ernesto miranda was one of those people. he, too,in phoenix and his -- his apartment was raided by police and he was suspected of rape and kidnapping, i think. he was taken to the police

station and he was grilled for two hours and after that he confessed. he confessed to the crime. but nobody ever told him that under the constitution, under the fifth amendment, he didn't have to speak to the police. not without having a lawyer by his side. the supreme court, again, previous case, they decided that this was really something that police should be required to do. they should be required to warn people that they have a right to remain silent, they have a right to a lawyer, and anything they say or do can be used against them. also, if they can't afford a lawyer, the government will provide them a lawyer. so that is a very clear statement by the supreme court

and that is what was put on miranda cards. police would have to recycle those exact words when they arrest someone and before they ask them questions. on monday morning, the court comes back for the first time since you said, june? you are going to be in the court and we asked in our poll what people think where the justices come from, what schools they go to, and whether or not it is too concentrated. in order to show how concentrated it is, on the screen are all of the law school that each of the nine justices went to. ginsburg, colombia, although she started at harvard. justice roberts, antonin scalia, stephen breyer, and elena kagan are all harvard law school graduates and in clarence thomas, samuel alito, and sonia sotomayor are yale.

even though ginsburg graduated from columbia, it is really three schools, but really only two. what does it say, if anything? certain --eaks to a this is an elite group of justices. least is noton, at very diverse or varied. it used to be justices had a varied background come of -- b them were some of from congress and some of them came from other law schools. we have a uniformity now that we haven't seen before. all of them except for elena

kagan has been judges before. brian: circuit court judges? tony: yes, circuit court judges before they came to the supreme court. some people believe there should be a greater diversity in law schools and in backgrounds. we had someone who was a criminal defense lawyer, well, not on the current court. we had people even from different legal backgrounds. brian: here is another chart from the court. the nine justices come in tomorrow. this is somewhat diverse head shows you who appointed them. on the screen, antonin scalia and anthony kennedy, ronald reagan. clarence thomas, george herbert walker bush. ginsburg and breyer, ill clinton -- bill clinton. history, the one who has got the most appointments is george washington and fdr, but what do

you think of that spread? tony: when you look at it, it actually looks like a fairly diverse array. almost of what you could achieve if you had term limits on a staggered basis. each president could appoint two justices. that's pretty much what you have here. but it doesn't always work that way. jimmy carter had one term in office and he had no supreme court appointments. that is one of his biggest regrets because presidents know that appointing a supreme court justice casts their shadow ahead for decades. gerald ford when he appointed justice stevens, that was probably his proudest achievement and he even said so and he said that justice stevens carried on his legacy for

decades. not that the justices will always vote in the way that the president who appointed him or her wishes that they would. but you know, they are still always identified as a clinton appointee or a reagan appointee, so it really means something to the president. brian: as we look at the "landmark cases" book that you wrote, it has in it another 12 cases and our series goes on for 12 weeks. here's another little vignette. famous case. dred scott. this is from the minnesota historical society. >> another thing that is pretty significant about this place existed for this enslaved people on land where

slavery wasn't legally recognized. that was actually one of the pieces of information that they used as a basis for the court case when they sued for their freedom in st. louis. this is the space that we speak about that was in the case. we refit this and outfitted the room and this is what we believed it would have looked like. this is the scott living quarters and it is interesting because the living quarters are located directly under the space. so the master's space is right above them here. stanfordott versus back in 1857, it was decided as you say in the book. what should we know about dred scott and how important this case was? tony: well, it is very important and some people think that it didn't cause the civil war but certainly would lead to it and

exacerbated the controversy over slavery which certainly was a fact to -- factor in the civil war. virginiat was born in but was sold as a slave to a person from missouri, like that clip demonstrates. moved to various states, illinois, wisconsin territory, these were places where slavery was not permitted, he wasclaimed that effectively freed by living in illinois. so he tried to make that argument, or his lawyers may that argument, to the supreme court. the supreme court said no. he was still a slave and as a slave he had no right to be suing anybody.

congress had no authority to end slavery in the territories. it was really an instance where the supreme court was just on the wrong side of history. it was one of the decisions that is regarded as probably one of the worst decisions that the supreme court ever made. brian: it was a seven-to vote -- 7-2 vote. we don't have a lot of time and i am going to be very quick so that folks who are interested in our "landmark cases" will know about lautner versus new york. tony: basically, it established that businesses have a right to a contract just like an individual right and that the government couldn't interfere with that. it introduced what is called the lautner era when all sorts of

reforms, the new deal, minimum wage laws, they were struck down because of this right that was given to businesses in the lochner case. brian: that was a 5-4 decision. the next one in your book was shank versus new york -- shink versus new york. tony: this was very interesting because the court was considering constitutional values and rules at a time of war. the man was encouraging people to avoid the draft and at the time, the congress had just let's see, i have

forgotten the name of the law, but anyway, it provided communications that were viewed as disloyal, and the supreme court upheld that law. again, i think -- brian: it was a 9-0 decision. tony: again, i think they were on the wrong side of the law. there is a quote from cicero where he said in a time of war, laws fall silent. that is the idea that the needs of security in wartime , constitutional rules kind of fall by the wayside. fred korematsu's daughter was here on the program yesterday. who is fred korematsu?

tony: he is a united states citizen but because he was of japanese descent, he was put in part of this internment policy that was established at the beginning of world war ii. there was a lot of panic after the attack on pearl harbor and there was worry that japanese on the west coast were going to conspire with japanese forces to attack the united states. people, most of them american citizens, were corralled into places away from the west coast. again, an extraordinary thing that you can't even imagine happening today. it.the supreme court upheld and challenged the policy of the supreme court upheld it and said because of the wartime extended sees --

wartime situations, it was ok. another one is roe versus wade, which is obviously the most, as we showed earlier, it's the most recognized of all the cases. here is just a minute of the man who wrote the opinion on roe versus wade and i will ask you the impact that this has obviously had. however,hat very day, act in january 20 2, 1973, lyndon b. johnson died, and news werethe abortion cases distantly secondary. a few days later, the roof fell in. it proved to be the greatest in its history on a specific case or parent cases.

i well recall the officers in the court standing at their posts sorting mail into separate sub\/\/ -- separate receptacles. i received several thousand letters about roe. i have read nearly all of them. object --i should not subject myself to that stress. was on thes powell court, a justice at the time. we see more of harry blackmun because of all those interviews. so roe versus wade. is woman who, the jane roe, so life. wantedhat's right, she

privacy and in the court papers she was called jane roe. of course, it was an extraordinary decision and justice blackmun wrote it. he was tortured, really, by the angry reaction that kicked in after it was decided. the court ruled that women have a right to an abortion and it stems from the right to privacy and in one fell swoop, the supreme court struck down the laws of many, many states that banned abortion or had limited it quite a bit. so that's why it caused a firestorm right away. conservatives and religious groups hate this decision and some liberals even thought it might have gone a little too far and a little too fast.

justice ginsburg has said, and she is a liberal on the court, she said that if the court had just ruled against the texas law or done something fairly narrow, then other states would have been able to legislate the right to abortion piecemeal, but in a more democratic way. it might not have caused as much controversy as roe versus wade did. brian: norma mccorvey had three children, she now has flipped completely, or she wouldn't say she has flipped, she would say she was railroaded by the two lawyers, the young lawyers act then, to get involved. she became a protestant and then she became a catholic and she in justicetive and so to mayor's -- justice

sotomayor's nomination, she was in the room. has she had a change of heart? tony: yes, it was extremely emotional for both sides. will it ever be overturned? i don't know. it is a possibility, again, going back to the presidential election. it might be reversed in a few years. brian: this is unfair because really have a couple of minutes, but some we haven't mentioned that will be in the series, brown versus board of education. a huge one. how important is that to american history? immensely huge, separate but equal schools are not permissible in the constitution. onethere is another regarding the constitutionality or time and this is where the court looked the other way where

president truman did not have the authority to seize the steel mills during the korean war and that congress had to legislate. brian: a 6-3 decision and again, hugo blackmun wrote that decision. and the final case in the series is the slaughterhouse cases. tony: yes, a dispute between andghterhouses in louisiana one was granted a monopoly and the other sued and it is claimed that the 14th amendment protected them from being discredit against. the court said no, that the 14th amendment protects u.s. citizens, not state citizenship, and that became a decision that was used to protect state's

states' rights-- against segregation. brian: one more question for you and we will let you go. 111 justices in history. which justice in history that you have never met would you like to have dinner with? tony: hugo blackmun. he is a fascinating person. as you say, he was a cook let's clan member but turned into one of the court has ever had -- he klan member but turned into one of the court's most liberal members that they have ever had. brian: are you married? tony: yes. brian: children? tony: yes. brian: the series is "landmark discussing 12 important

supreme court cases. this is an extraordinary 117 page book. anyone who wants it can find it through our store. but tony mauro, a new jersey late -- new jersey native? tony: i moved to new york. brian: thank you. tony: thank you. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us atq q&a.org.- at " transcripts are also

available as podcasts. announcer: if you enjoyed this interview with tony mauro, here are some others that you might like. historian william field discusses first ladies in the white house and supreme court justice antonin scalia talks about the language of the law and judicial interpretation. you can watch these anytime or search our library at c-span.org. on the next "washington journal," "new york times" journalist looks at the supreme court term. also, the state of the supreme court and the upcoming docket and some of the major decisions over the last term. as always we take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. live atton journal," 7:00 a.m. eastern on

>> monday on "the net neutrality" and other issues involving video and broadband and television. he is introduced by the senior editor at communications daily. to copper,ision goes circuit-switched to technology and new networks, how do we make sure our public safety to 911 and competition -- taken root in the marketplace continues and thrives? and how do we make sure that our ourical institutions, schools, our libraries, our first responders? the service as they depend on, those networks, how do they go into the