Supreme Court

The Supreme Court

To start off in the Supreme Court, there are nine Supreme Court justices. The average time a court justice is in the court is sixteen years. The Supreme Court comes to a court to draw the boundaries of government power. They have a lot of responsibility and authority by being able to tell the president, congress, and the states what they may or may not do.
 The Supreme Court was not always respected. It was not until John Marshall's period that the new court earned public respect as a co-equal branch of government.

The most divisive issue in American history happened twenty years later when Dred Scott, a Missouri slave, declared his freedom under an act of congress. Under Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, the court rules that congress had no power to ban slavery and that blacks could never be citizens. The civil war cleared that, and the Dred Scott decision is now known " as the court's great self- inflicted wound." After the war, the constitution was amended. They abolished slavery, defined citizenship, and granted voting rights.

Can you believe that the Supreme Court receives more than 100 new cases every week, and about 7,000 cases a year! They are mostly petitions for certiorari, which are written arguments attempting to persuade the court that a lower court ruling was incorrect. But they only really accept about 100 a year for review. The ones that are accepted are sent to the justices once a week.

Each justice is assisted by a small staff of law clerks and secretaries, but each justice is in charge of deciding each case. By the time a case arrives, the facts have been established in a trial court. This court considers the legal questions. Justices meet weekly in a conference to discuss which cases they will accept and deny. It has no precedential value if they deny a case.

The Supreme Court hears cases in public. Lawyers on opposing sides of each case are allowed to argue for 30 minutes each. Within a few days after hearing arguments the court justices gather in their conference room alone to vote. Whichever side wins the vote needs to write an opinion about the legal reasons for the decision. Any justice may write a separate opinion. Compromise is inevitable.
The court's tradition is to announce decisions and release opinions in the late-term in June.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWRoXYRsaeo&feature=youtu.be