Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Monday is participating in her first-ever oral arguments on the high court after being confirmed and seated just under one week ago.
Court-watchers will not be able to see the justice in-person sitting on the Supreme Court bench because of the coronavirus pandemic. But anyone in the country can hear Barrett through the livestream of the Supreme Court's remote oral arguments in two separate cases Monday.
Before the court Monday are two cases set to be argued at 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. First, the court will hear U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, Inc. -- a Freedom of Information Act case -- before hearing Salinas v. Railroad Retirement Board.
Because the remote oral arguments are done via traditional phone line instead of video conference, the arguments are much more structured than the typical free-for-all format in which justices interrupt the lawyers arguing before them at will. The lawyers will open their arguments with brief comments before justices each get five minutes to quiz the lawyers on their own, by descending order of seniority.
This means it will likely be a half-hour or more after 10 a.m. before Barrett first speaks. She will follow Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is now the second-most junior justice.
There were not plans for Chief Justice John Roberts to give a formal statement on Barrett joining the court -- the court said last week there are plans for a formal ceremony during a special sitting in the Supreme Court's courtroom in the future. But Roberts did say Monday it is his "great pleasure" to welcome his new colleague to the famously collegial bench.
The Supreme Court will also hear two criminal cases on Tuesday before it gets into hot-button issues Wednesday and next week.
On Wednesday, the court will hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is a case about whether or not a city can prevent a religious group that does not place foster children with same-sex couples from participating in its foster program. On Nov. 9 the court will hear a case on immigration, and on Nov. 10 it will hear Texas v. California, the case about the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that loomed large over Barrett's confirmation process.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The Supreme Court on Monday also released an order list from its Friday conference, which was the first Barrett would have participated in as a justice. But the court in its order list said "Justice Barrett took no part in the consideration or decision of the motions or petitions appearing on this Order List."
This is consistent with a handful of decisions the Supreme Court made in emergency election-related cases last week in which Barrett did not participate because she had not been able to review all the briefs from the parties after only being seated Tuesday.
Conferences are where justices meet behind closed doors, primarily deciding which cases they will put on their docket. The court did not add any new cases to its docket Monday, but did issue a handful of "per curium" decisions.
Fox News' Bill Mears contributed to this report.