Justice Sotomayor Shaded by Justice Kennedy for Viewing Website of Party Involved in Argument

During arguments over crisis pregnancy centers on Tuesday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she visited the website of one of the centers involved in the Supreme Court case. In response, Justice Anthony Kennedy said, "Well, in this case I didn't go beyond the record to look on the internet because I don't think we should do that," Kennedy said. But whenChief Justice John Roberts did something similar seven years ago, no one uttered a peep. Going beyond the record, in legal terms, refers to material that is not part of the court record and so untested by the adversarial process. As CBS News points out, in a case on campaign contribution limits in 2011, Roberts said he consulted the website of one of the parties to the case that morning and asked a question about what he saw. During arguments in 2016 over a Texas law that restricted abortion clinics, Justice Samuel Alito made use of an article from the Huffington Post. Justice Stephen Breyer will sometimes begin a question by saying he had his clerks look something up. Nothing from Justice Kennedy during any of those instances. More here.