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The U.S. Supreme Court is experiencing a visual boom. In a break from its text-based tradition, the Court is increasingly incorporating images directly into its opinions. In the past fifteen years, pictures of prison dormitories, prayer circles, and stolen artwork have graced the pages of the U.S. Reports. Recently, the Court’s visual vocabulary has grown to include a 150-year-old political cartoon, fifty-nine license plate designs, and a series of gun diagrams alongside a gif. Even more, in just the last five years, visuals have started appearing more frequently in the main body of opinions rather than being relegated to appendices.

While this rise in “visual opinions” may seem inevitable in today’s visual age, it raises significant questions about the foundations of judicial authority and the nature of judicial reasoning. But while scholars have extensively analyzed visual advocacy by lawyers, the Court’s own embrace of visual rhetoric—and its implications for the Court and the institution of judicial decisionmaking—has received surprisingly little attention.

This Article explores the Court’s visual practices and their implications for judicial legitimacy. It makes three key contributions. First, drawing on a review of over 400 visual opinions, it provides the first account of the Court’s use of images from the Founding to the present. It finds that while the Court’s use of visuals has accelerated in recent years, its use of visual content finds deep and expansive roots in the nineteenth century. Second, it connects the Court’s visual practices to legitimacy theory, analyzing how visuals reshape the Court’s performance as a principled decisionmaker, impartial decider, and public servant. Visual content can enhance judicial reasoning by clarifying complex concepts and connecting abstract law to concrete reality. But it can also undermine core legitimacy values by compromising analytical rigor, embedding hidden biases, and transforming legal discourse into political performance.

Third, this Article advances a counterintuitive recommendation. If a picture is worth a thousand words, judges may need to write a thousand “more” words when they include pictures. Because visuals invite multiple interpretations and can overwhelm legal reasoning, courts should consider providing enhanced justification when they use images. Rather than letting visuals “speak for themselves,” judges must explicitly explain their relevance, anticipate competing interpretations, and directly confront visual counternarratives. Visual opinions require more explanation, not less.