On Monday, December 12, 2022, the United States Supreme Court announced that it will once again resume the tradition of announcing its opinions from the bench. The Court took a short, but many considered still too long, hiatus during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. When the pandemic began, the Supreme Court was forced to stop the announcing of opinions from the bench, as the public facilities and buildings were set to close, including the courthouse. The closing of the courthouse required the Justices to continue with the hearing of cases remotely, announcing opinions through the SCOTUS website only. This led to a number of issues, including the webpage crashing when long awaited opinions were set to be revealed. In October 2021, the Court resumed the hearing of in-person cases. This only allowed the court staff, attorneys, and a few journalists to be in the courtroom and present for the case. This meant that there were still no open court opinion announcements to read to the public, as there was no audience allowed to be present.
