The Supreme Court of the United States, based in Washington, D.C., is the highest federal court in the United States. It has ultimate judicial authority within the United States to interpret the Constitution and decide questions of federal law. It has the power of judicial review (i.e. it can declare Acts of Congress and state legislatures, and actions of the federal and state executive unconstitutional). As Justice Robert H. Jackson once famously remarked "We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final."
The Supreme Court is the only court established by the United States Constitution. All other federal courts are created by the U.S. Congress. The justices (currently nine) are appointed for life by the President of the United States and confirmed by majority vote by the Senate. One of these nine serves as Chief Justice; the remaining members are designated Associate Justices.
It is the highest-ranking part of the judicial branch of the United States government. The Supreme Court is sometimes known by the acronyms SCOTUS and USSC.
Structure and powers
Article Three of the United States Constitution defines the types of cases the Court may hear, and establises the terms of office for Supreme Court justices. Section I states "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court," and establishes the life tenure of justices, stating that they "shall hold their Offices during good Behavior" (that is, they can be subject to impeachment but cannot be dismissed for other reasons) and that their salaries cannot be reduced while in office.
Section II establishes the types of cases that the Supreme Court will hear:
- The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States; between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
Therefore its jurisdiction is limited to "cases" and "controversies" arising under federal law. Cases that arise from the state court systems may only be heard by the United States Supreme Court if they present an issue of federal law. In those cases in which the state court decided the case on an independent and adequate state ground, the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to hear it.
- In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
Therefore, for the majority of cases, the Supreme Court has appellate Jurisdiction. Most of its work consists of appellate review of cases from state supreme courts or from lower federal courts.
In addition, although the Constitution states the outer limits of the court's power, it also gives Congress the ability to limit its jurisdiction. Although Congress has authorized review of lower court decisions by direct appeal in limited circumstances, most cases are brought to the court by petition for a writ of certiorari, which the court has discretion to grant or deny. If the court grants certiorari, the case is placed on its calendar for briefing and oral argument. If the court denies certiorari, it does not decide the merits of the case, and the lower court's decision remains in force.
It is worth noting that the Supreme Court, unlike the Legislative or the Executive branches, has no budgetary or military power at its disposal. It relies solely upon respect for the Constitution for adherence to its judgments. At the conclusion of United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974), many feared that Richard Nixon would refuse to turn over the Watergate tapes (an example of what legal scholars call executive nonacquiescence). Nixon, however, complied.
Although not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, the Court, like all U.S. courts, is accepted to have the power of judicial review. The 1803 case Marbury v. Madison established that the Supreme Court can strike down laws passed by Congress that exceed Congress's constitutional powers. In Fletcher v. Peck (1810) the court ruled for the first time that a law made by a state legislature violated the Consitution, extending the Court's jurisdiction to laws and actions of state governments. Although used reluctantly at first, this power has been frequently used in recent decades.
Among the reasons why the U.S. Supreme Court is so much more powerful than comparable courts of other countries are the age, the relative shortness and in many places the very general language of the U.S. Constitution and the relatively high difficulty of changing that Constitution.
Appointments
Appointments to the Supreme Court are a politicized and often controversial process. There are nine seats on the Court, although this number may be changed by an Act of Congress. However, the number has been fixed at nine since 1869. Vacancies are created when a justice dies, resigns, retires into senior status, or is removed by impeachment and conviction (which has never occurred). On average, vacancies occur every two years, but long stretches can elapse without turnover. The current group of Justices has served together since 1994. Court watchers prize these periods of stability as opportunities to observe trends and shifts in judicial philosophy on key legal issues. When turnover is more frequent, commentators evaluate the Court's jurisprudence within the time span of the years of service of a particular Chief Justice. Thus, the Court during the period 1969 to 1986 was known as the "Burger Court," and since 1986 has been known as the "Rehnquist Court."
As a general rule, a President will nominate individuals that broadly share his ideological views, but in order for nominations to be successfully confirmed he will usually exercise some restraint. Nominees with political views widely perceived as extreme will likely fail to be confirmed by the Senate. There are five likely sources of Supreme Court Justices: the federal Appeals Court, state courts, the executive branch, members of Congress, or an academic. On the current Court, seven Justices previously served on federal appellate courts, two were state trial and appellate judges, three were full-time law school professors, three held full-time positions in the federal executive branch, and one (outgoing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor) was an elected state legislator.
The President makes a nomination to fill a vacant seat of the Court, which must be confirmed by a simple majority of votes in the United States Senate, although the nomination can be filibustered. Detailed background checks by the FBI will take place. It is the role of the Senate Judiciary Committee to analyse the suitability of nomineees. It will call the nominee and witnesses for questioning. Current Senate Judiciary Committee member Charles Schumer of the Democratic Party has said "All questions are legitimate. What is your view on Roe v. Wade? What is your view on gay marriage? They are going to try to get away with the idea that we're not going to know their views. But that's not going to work this time.” [1]. However, Republican member Orrin Hatch has said "I don't think nominees have to answer certain questions. They don't have to answer questions about how they are going to vote in the future. They don't have to answer stupid questions. They don't have to answer argumentative cases." [2] The Committee will vote on whether to recommend the nominee or not, and then the matter is passed to the floor for debate and a vote. The Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary of the American Bar Association will assess the nominee "solely to professional qualifications: integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament."[3] The Committee consists of fifteen federal judges (not Supreme Court justices). It will offer a rating for the nominee - "well qualified", "qualified" or "not qualified". Other interest groups are often involved in the confirmation process, such as groups supporting or opposing the perceived judicial philosophy of the nominee. The nominee's personal life will also be subject to much scrutiny. Most recently, Douglas H. Ginsburg's nomination was withdrawn after he admitted he had used marijuana, and during Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearings, there was much scrutiny over allegations of sexual harassment of former colleague Anita Hill.
Procedures
The Court hears cases in terms that begin on the first Monday of October each year and carry over until June or July of the next year. During this period, the Court goes through two-week periods during which it is alternately sitting or recessed.
In order to file pleadings or argue a case before the Supreme Court, an attorney must be a member of the Bar of the Court. The basic requirements for admission are that the applicant must have been admitted at least three years previously to the bar of the highest court of a state or territory of the U.S., be recommended for admission by two other members of the bar of the Supreme Court not related to the applicant by blood or marriage, and not have been publicly disciplined by any court or professional disciplinary agency for the previous year.
When deciding a case, each justice can write his or her own opinion; all these statements are made public. There is usually one opinion for the majority of the justices, which is designated the "Opinion of the Court". In addition to the majority opinion, there are often concurring and dissenting opinions. Usually, the majority opinion is signed by its author, but sometimes the court will issue an unsigned opinion "per curiam", particularly if it summarily reverses a lower court's decision without full briefing or oral argument. The majority opinion is usually preceded by a summary called a "syllabus", which concisely summarizes the case and the decision. The syllabus is accompanied by a disclaimer that it is prepared by the reporter of decisions and does not constitute a part of the court's opinion.
The practice of issuing an opinion of the court was initiated during the tenure of Chief Justice John Marshall in the early nineteenth century. This replaced the previous practice by which each justice would announce a separate opinion. The older practice is still followed by appellate courts in many common law jurisdictions outside the United States.
Case reporters and citations
Supreme Court decisions are cited as in the following example: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 118 (1973). The parts of the citation are as follows:
- the opposing parties (see below)
- the number of the reporter volume in which the decision was published
- "U.S.", signifying United States Reports, the official reporter for the U.S. Supreme Court
- the page number where the decision begins
- the page number(s) of the specific material cited
- the year the case was decided
The listed names are given in the format "Petitioner v. Respondent", where the petitioner is the party that requested certiorari after having lost the previous decision in the case, and the respondent is the party having prevailed in the lower court. Where the case has come to the court by an appeal of right, as in what is called "probable jurisdiction," the appealing party (the "appellant") is named first. In cases involving a federal agency (for example, the United States Department of Justice), the head of the agency is often named as a party to the case, such as Ashcroft v. ACLU. The v. stands for versus, Latin for "against." In speaking, it is sometimes read as "vee", sometimes as "versus", and sometimes as "against."
In addition to the official United States Reports, Supreme Court cases are also reported in the Supreme Court Reporter (S.Ct), published by West Publishing Company and including cases decided since 1882, and the United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyer's Edition first and second editions (L.Ed. and L.Ed.2d), with cases since 1790 published by the Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company. Both include everything in the official United States Reports as well as editorial features such as annotations and topic headers.
A case cite will often list in a parallel cite where the case can be found in all three reporters, as in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973).
The reporter of decisions is responsible for publication of the Court's rulings.
Current Justices
See also: List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
As of 2005, the justices of the United States Supreme Court are:
Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas are generally considered to be the conservative wing of the court. Justices Souter, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Stevens are generally considered to the liberal wing. Justices Kennedy and O'Connor are typically seen as moderates, and hence are the swing votes who often determine the outcome of close cases.
On July 1, 2005 Justice O'Connor announced her retirement effective on the date of the confirmation of her successor. Presumably, if the president's nominee cannot be confirmed by the beginning of the next term, Justice O'Connor will continue to serve. This has occurred before, most notably with Chief Justice Earl Warren, who announced his retirement "at the [president's] pleasure" in a letter to President Johnson in June 1968. Shortly thereafter, President Johnson nominated associate justice Abe Fortas to succeed Warren. However, ethical issues plagued Fortas, and his nomination was filibustered in the Senate. His nomination was eventually withdrawn. President Johnson was unable to vet another nominee, a problem compounded by Johnson's status as a lame-duck president and Richard Nixon's election in November 1968. Accordingly, although Earl Warren expected that his tenure would end in June 1968, he wound up opening the October term of the Court and served until the end of the 1968 term, stepping down in June 1969 following the confirmation of his successor, Chief Justice Warren Burger.
Judicial philosophy
The term judicial philosophy means a philosophy or ideology that shapes a certain way of interpreting the Constitution.
The term loose constructionism means a broad interpretation of the Constitution, inference of principles in the Constitution that Justices contend to exist, even if they are not supported textually in the Constitution. It stresses that the "meaning" of the Constitution is flexible over time. Strict constructionism is an interpretation of the Constitution that has strict adherence to the text of individual clauses, and does not attempt to infer principles which are not strictly supoported in the text. Originalism is a philosophy that stresses the meaning of the Constitution at the time it was written. One version, known as original intent, is the view that interpretation of a written constitution is (or should be) consistent with what it was originally intended to mean by those who drafted and ratified it. The other version, known as original meaning, or textualism, is the view that interpretation of a written constitution should be based on what it would commonly have been understood to mean by reasonable persons living at the time of its ratification.
Judicial activism and judicial restraint are terms which describe the degree to which justices are perceived as "active" or "restrained". There is no single agreed meaning for either of the terms. Each term often has has political connotations. One definition of judicial activism is in terms of creating new policy: the "making of new public policies through the decisions of judges." (Harper Collins Dictionary of American Government And Politics). Another definition links the term to departure from precedent: a "[j]udical philosophy which motivates judges to depart from strict adherence to judicial precedent in favor of progressive and new social policies which are not always consistent with the restraint expected of appellate judges." (Black's Law Dictionary). Another definition links the term to loose constructionism or broad constructionism: a "theory of interpretation of the Constitution that hold that the spirit of the times, the values of the justices, and the needs of the nation may legitimately influence the decisions of a court, particularly the Supreme Court." (The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy). [4]. Judicial restraint means the opposite of judicial activism, and therefore can be defined in terms of the converse meanings of the three possible definitions given above. Therefore, it may means: restraint from making new public policy or restraint by adherence to precedent, or restraint by strict constructionism or originalism. Note that each meaning will produce dramatic differences in willingness to overturn laws.
History
The Court achieved its current powers during the tenure of Chief Justice John Marshall. He was appointed to the office by John Adams in the final days of Adams' presidency. As a political opponent of the Jeffersonian Republicans, Marshall delivered a number of opinions that they found uncongenial, strengthening the Judicial branch at the expense of the Executive branch and asserting the Court's monopoly on the interpretation of the Constitution. Among these cases were Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803), formally asserting the Court's role in judicial review, and United States v. Peters, 5 Cranch 115 (1809), affirming that the power of the federal government was greater than any individual state. Marbury, in particular, is arguably the single most important case in the court's history; it began the process of judicial review, allowing the Supreme Court to strike down laws of Congress it deemed unconstitutional. This model has been adopted by countries throughout the world.
Congress determines the number of justices on the Court. There have been nine justices on the Court since 1869. There were originally six until 1807, when a seventh justice was added. In 1837 an eighth and ninth were added with a tenth in 1863. The Judicial Circuits Act of 1866 called for the removal of three seats as justices retired. This act was passed to deny President Andrew Johnson from making any Supreme Court appointments. One seat was removed in 1866 and a second in 1867. Before a third seat was removed, the Congress passed the Circuit Judges Act of 1869 restoring the number of seats to nine. Since 1869, the Court has been kept at nine, both for political reasons as well as practical necessity. Subsequent attempts to change the number of justices have been rejected.
The last notable attempt to alter the number of justices was on February 5, 1937 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed an increase in the size of the Court to fifteen justices, one additional seat for each justice over age 70, to deal with a Court overturning of Roosevelt's New Deal legislation. Many politicians at the time and historians since scorned this plan to "pack the court". The proposal failed on July 22 when the United States Senate voted against it.
The Court became much more active and more loose constructionist in general in its decisions during the tenure of Chief Justice Earl Warren (1953-1969). Through application of these judicial philosophies, it created new rights for the accused in criminal cases and endorsed the expansion of the definition of the Commerce Clause to allow the federal government action to enforce civil rights, for example. Its most famous decision is Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which explicitly outlawed de jure racial segregation of public education facilities, and ordered states to comply "with all deliberate speed". At the time, this was seen as an activist decision[5], since it created a policy of desegregation, and overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). However, some constitutionists' subsequent commentary on the case has argued it was not inherently activist. For example, Justice Scalia argued in an opinion in the case Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois "To the contrary, in the 19th century, the principle of 'separate-but-equal' had been vigorously opposed on constitutional grounds, litigated up to this Court, and upheld only over the dissent of one of our historically most respected Justices"[6]. Another famous case was Engel v. Vitale (1962) which outlawed school prayer.
The Court of Warren Burger (1969-1986) largely continued its predecessor's judicial philosophy. Its most famous decision was to establish abortion as a constitutional right in Roe v. Wade (1973). Other famous decisions include ruling capital punishment unconstitutional as then applied (Furman v. Georgia (1972), and supporting school desegregation by busing in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971). However, the court also showed considerable restraint, in reinstating capital punishment in Gregg v. Georgia (1976) and outlawing racial quotas as a means of affirmative action in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978). The current court, the Rehniquist Court, has shown arguably more restraint than the previous two regimes, and more adherence to strict constructionism. It has set limits on the Commerce Clause, in United States v. Lopez for example. However, it has not overturned the precedent set in major controversial decisions such as school prayer and abortion set by its predecessors. However, some decisions have been more activist and loose constructionist, such as declaring capital punishment for minors unconstitutional (Roper v. Simmons) and invalidating a Texan law banning homosexual sodomy (Lawrence v. Texas). Perhaps its most controversial ruling was in Bush v. Gore (2000), which stopped the Florida recount in the disputed U.S. presidential election, 2000.
Physical location
The Supreme Court convened for the first time on February 1, 1790 in the Merchants Exchange Building in New York City. It moved to Philadelphia and finally to Washington, DC as the location of the national capital changed. For much of its history, it met in various spaces within the Capitol, mostly on the Senate floor (and in a private house for a brief period when the Capitol was burned during the War of 1812).
In 1935 it was finally moved to an independent structure more befitting its independent stature within the federal government, at the urging of William Howard Taft, who had been both President of the United States and Chief Justice. One commentator observed at the time that the building, located across the street from the Capitol, had fine high windows for the Court to throw the New Deal out of.
The United States Supreme Court building was designed by architect Cass Gilbert and built between 1932 and 1935. Marble for the court building was brought from Italy with personal assistance of Benito Mussolini. The building is currently undergoing the first renovation in its 70-year history, which is scheduled for completion in 2008.[7]
Notable decisions
Notable statements
- Clear and present danger and imminent lawless action (free speech)
- Lemon Test (Establishment clause)
- Miller test for obscenity
- Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal)
- Corporate personhood
- Miranda warnings ("You have the right to remain silent...")
See also
- Justices who have served on the Court
- Nominees to the Court who never served
- Federal judicial appointment history#Supreme Court
- United States federal courts
- United States federal judicial circuit
- United States district court
- Federal government of the United States
- Congress of the United States
- President of the United States
- Supreme Court
- Appellate court
- Judiciary
- Legal research
External links
- US Supreme Court official homepage
- LII - US Supreme Court decisions: recent and historic
- Oyez.org, a repository of Supreme court opinions and information
- Milestone Cases in Supreme Court History from Infoplease.com
- All Supreme Court decisions since 1897, from FindLaw
- Biographies of the Justices
- Extensive collection of Supreme Court decisions, audio clips and biographies of all justices of the Court
- Teaching about the United States Supreme Court. ERIC Digest.
- Teaching about Landmark Dissents in United States Supreme Court Cases. ERIC Digest.
- Teaching the Law Using United States Supreme Court Cases. ERIC Digest.
- The Supreme Court Historical Society
References
- Constitution of the United States.
- ^ Biskupic, Joan (March 29, 2005). "Add dust for all at Supreme Court". USA Today, p. 3A. Information on renovations underway at the Supreme Court Building and other buildings along the National Mall
- ^ "The ABA Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary: What It Is and How it Works"
- ^ Analysis of BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION
- ^ RUTAN v. REPUBLICAN PARTY OF ILLINOIS, 497 U.S. 62 (1990) Footnote 1
- ^ Supreme Court Battle
- ^ Questioning the Nominee
- ^ Supreme Court Nominees