So Ordered
AI-narrated readings of U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions. Each episode pairs the Court's syllabus with a reading of the majority opinion, lightly adapted for listening and voiced by a synthesized voice styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice.
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What this is
So Ordered publishes unabridged readings of U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions.
SCOTUS provides recordings of oral arguments freely to the public, but at this time the Court does not release audio of opinions being read. That leaves an accessibility gap for parts of the public who would rather engage with the Court’s opinions by ear.
This project aims to fill that gap by providing audio readings of majority opinions in AI-synthesized voices.
Each episode has two parts:
- A short introduction — the case name and docket number, along with a brief summary drawn from the Court’s published syllabus, the Questions Presented, the holding, and the vote breakdown.
- The majority opinion, read start to finish in a synthesized voice lightly stylized to resemble the authoring justice.
The text read aloud is the opinion as published by the Supreme Court, with light edits made only to aid the readability of the spoken version. For example, citations to specific page numbers and volumes are simplified or omitted, because numerical citations do not translate well to audio.
Why
Supreme Court opinions are public-domain government works, but they are written to be read, not heard. A spoken reading makes them accessible while commuting, exercising, or away from a screen — without the gloss of a host’s interpretation between you and the Court’s words.
Our Goal
So Ordered’s ultimate goal is to become obsolete.
This podcast would prefer a world where the Supreme Court released audio of the justices reading their opinions and made it freely available, the same way it releases oral arguments. That would give the public direct access to rulings that can affect millions of people.
Until that audio is freely available, our goal is to provide a public service that lets people connect with the Court’s opinions through an audio medium.
Sourcing & licensing
Opinion text comes directly from supremecourt.gov. U.S. Supreme Court opinions are works of the federal government and are in the public domain (17 U.S.C. § 105). This podcast’s audio is released under CC0.
Latest episodes
All episodes →- Trump v. Barbara The Court holds that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are nonetheless "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, and so are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause. The Clause incorporates the common law rule of jus soli — citizenship by birth on the soil — subject only to the narrow exceptions recognized at common law, such as the children of foreign ministers. President Trump's Executive Order denying birthright citizenship to such children is therefore inconsistent with the Constitution.
- Trump v. Cook The Court denies the Government's request to stay a District Court injunction that bars President Trump from removing Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. On a narrow ground, the Court holds that the President failed to give Cook the notice and opportunity to respond that the Federal Reserve Act requires before a Governor may be removed for cause, so Cook remains in office while the litigation continues.
- Mullin v. Al Otro Lado The Court holds that an alien standing in Mexico does not "arrive in the United States" by attempting, and failing, to set foot in this country — an alien arrives only when he crosses the border. As a result, the Immigration and Nationality Act neither entitles an alien stopped on the Mexican side of the border to apply for asylum nor requires an immigration officer to inspect him.
- Wolford v. Lopez The Court holds that a Hawaii law barring licensed concealed-carry permit holders from carrying handguns on private property open to the public unless the owner gives express authorization violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. By flipping the common-law default — under which anyone has an implied license to enter property held open to the public unless the owner withdraws consent — the law imposes a severe new burden on the right to carry arms for self-defense, and the State's historical analogues, mostly old anti-poaching hunting laws, are too far afield to justify it.
- Mullin v. Doe The Court holds that the Temporary Protected Status statute's judicial-review bar forecloses respondents' non-constitutional challenges to the termination of TPS for Syria and Haiti, reaching not only the Secretary's ultimate decision but also the subsidiary steps leading to it. It further holds that the Haitian challengers' equal protection claim — that Haiti's designation was ended because of race — is unlikely to succeed, since the cited statements were not overtly racial and expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications. The District Courts' grants of interim relief are reversed and remanded.