Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 363.0

202 

HOLLINGSWORTH  v.  PERRY 

Breyer, J., dissenting 

terested public were aware of the proposals to change Ninth 
Circuit  policy  that  culminated  in  the  “pilot  program”  well 
before  the  change  in  the  local  rules  that  enabled  participa­
tion in the project.  The Ninth Circuit issued a press release 
in mid-December explaining its new “pilot program.”  Then, 
once  the  District  Court  amended  its  local  rule,  it  issued  its 
own notice nearly three weeks before the transmissions that 
the  rule  change  authorized  were  to  begin.  And  the  rule 
change  itself  is  simply  a  change  that  conforms  local  rule  to 
Circuit  policy—a  conformity  that  the  law  may  well  require. 
(The Judicial Council had long before voted to make its video 
policy “binding on all courts within the Ninth Circuit,” Let­
ter from Chief Judge Hug to All Ninth Circuit Judges (June 
21, 1996) (available in Clerk of Court’s case ﬁle); it announced 
its  new  “pilot  program”  policy  in  December  2009,  App.  to 
Application,  Exh.  13,  App.  to  Pet.;  and  federal  statutes  ren­
der district court rules void insofar as they have been “modi­
ﬁed or abrogated” by the Council, see § 2071(c)(1).)  Compare 
ante, at 195 (“Council only has the power to modify or abro­
gate  local  rules  that  conﬂict  with  federal  law”),  with  28 
U. S. C.  § 332(d)(1)  (“[C]ouncil  shall  make  all  necessary  and 
appropriate orders for the effective and expeditious adminis­
tration  of  justice  within  its  circuit”).  The  applicants  point 
to  no  interested  person  unaware  of  the  change.  How  can 
the  majority  reasonably  demand  yet  more  notice  in  respect 
to  a  local  rule  modiﬁcation  that  a  statute  likely  requires 
regardless? 

There was also sufﬁcient “opportunity for comment.”  The 
parties, the intervenors, other judges, the public—all had an 
opportunity  to  comment.  The  parties  were  speciﬁcally  in­
vited  by  Chief  Judge  Walker  to  comment  on  the  possibility 
of  broadcast  as  early  as  September.  And  the  entire  public 
was invited by the District Court to submit comments after 
the  rule  change  was  announced,  right  up  to  the  eve  of  trial. 
As  I  said,  the  court  received  138,542  comments  during  that 
time.  How  much  more  “opportunity  for  comment”  does