Supreme Court of the United States

 

           Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" (majority vote) of the Senate. Once appointed, Justices effectively have life tenure, serving "during good Behaviour",[1] which terminates only upon death, resignation, retirement, or conviction on impeachment.[2] The Court meets in Washington, D.C. in the United States Supreme Court Building. The Supreme Court is primarily an appellate court, but it has original jurisdiction over a small range of cases.[3] The Supreme Court is sometimes informally referred to as the High Court, or by the acronym SCOTUS.

 

                      Seniority and seating

Many of the internal operations of the Court are organized by the seniority of the Justices; the Chief Justice is considered the most senior member of the Court, regardless of the length of his or her service. The Associate Justices are then ranked by the length of their service.

During Court sessions, the Justices sit according to seniority, with the Chief Justice in the center, and the Associate Justices on alternating sides, with the most senior Associate Justice on the Chief Justice's immediate right, and the most junior Associate Justice seated on the left farthest away from the Chief Justice. Therefore, the current court sits as follows from left to right when looking at the bench from the perspective of a lawyer arguing before the Court: Alito, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Stevens (most senior Associate Justice), Roberts (Chief Justice), Scalia, Thomas, Breyer, and Sotomayor. In the official yearly Court photograph, Justices are arranged similarly, with the five most senior members sitting in the front row in the same order as they would sit during Court sessions, and the four most junior Justices standing behind them, again in the same order as they would sit during Court sessions.

In the Justices' private conferences, the current practice is for Justices to speak and vote in order of seniority from the Chief Justice first to the most junior Associate Justice last. The most junior Associate Justice in these conferences is tasked with any menial labor the Justices may require as they convene alone, such as answering the door of their conference room, serving coffee, and transmitting the orders of the court to the court's clerk.[85] Justice Joseph Story served the longest as the junior Justice, from February 3, 1812, to September 1, 1823, for a total of 4,228 days. Justice Stephen Breyer follows close behind, with 4,199 days when Samuel Alito joined the court on January 31, 2006.[86]

 

                                 Judicial leanings

While justices do not represent or receive official endorsements from political parties, as is accepted practice in the legislative and executive branches, jurists are informally categorized in legal and political circles as being judicial conservatives, moderates, or liberals.

Six of the current justices of the court were appointed by Republican Presidents, while three were appointed by Democratic Presidents. It is popularly accepted that Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito compose the Court's conservative wing. Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer are generally thought of as the Court's liberal wing.[88] Justice Anthony Kennedy, generally considered a conservative who "occasionally vote[s] with the liberals",[89] is most likely to be the swing vote that determines the outcome of close cases.[90] Recent appointee Justice Sotomayor has voted only in cases that were decided with at least seven votes, with two exceptions.[91] Her first opinion for the Court was on a procedural issue;[92] her second was on criminal appellate procedure;[93] her third was on statutory interpretation of the Bankruptcy Code.[94]

Justice Sotomayor has joined dissents in two cases: South Carolina v. North Carolina,[95], and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.[96] In the former, she joined Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas and Ginsburg in an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, written by the Chief Justice. In Citizens United, she joined part of the opinion for the Court (written by Justice Kennedy; the part joined by Justice Sotomayor was also joined all other justices except Justice Thomas), and dissented in part, joining the dissent written by Justice John Paul Stevens (which was also joined by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer). Other than these two cases, Justice Sotomayor has not joined any opinion that was not joined by at least six other justices, nor has she written any concurrences or dissents as of February 23, 2010.

 

                                   Quarters

The Supreme Court first met on 1 February 1790, at the Merchants' Exchange Building in New York City, which then was the national capital. Philadelphia became the capital city later in 1790, and the Court followed Congress and the President there, meeting briefly in Independence Hall, and then from 1791 to 1800 at Old City Hall at 5th and Chestnut Streets. After Washington, D.C., became the capital in 1800, the Court occupied various spaces in the United States Capitol building until 1935, when it moved into its own purpose-built home at One First Street Northeast, Washington, DC. The four-story building was designed in a classical style sympathetic to the surrounding buildings of the Capitol complex and Library of Congress by architect Cass Gilbert, and is clad in marble quarried chiefly in Vermont. The building includes space for the Courtroom, Justices' chambers, an extensive law library, various meeting spaces, and auxiliary services such as workshop, stores, cafeteria and a gymnasium. The Supreme Court building is within the ambit of the Architect of the Capitol. However, it maintains its own police force, the Supreme Court Police, separate from the Capitol Police.

Visitors can tour the building on their own, though not the courtroom itself.[98] The building is open to the public from 9am to 4:30pm weekdays but closed on weekends and holidays.[99] It is located behind the United States Capitol at One First Street NE and Maryland Avenue[99][100] There's a cafeteria, gift shop, exhibits, and a half-hour informational film.[98] When the Court is not in session, lectures about the courtroom are held hourly from 9:30am to 3:30pm and reservations are not necessary.[98] When the Court is in session the public may attend Oral Arguments, which are held twice each morning on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays in two-week intervals from October through late April, with breaks during December and February. Visitors are seated on a first-come first-served basis. One estimate is there are about 250 seats available.[101] Sometimes, there are also afternoon argument sessions.[99] The number of open seats varies from case to case. For important cases, some visitors arrive the day before and wait through the night. In mid-May until the end of June, the court releases orders and opinions beginning at 10am, and these 15 to 30 minute sessions are open to the public on a similar basis.[98] Supreme Court Police are available to answer questions.[99]

 

                        Jurisdiction

The Constitution specifies that the Supreme Court may exercise original jurisdiction in cases affecting ambassadors and other diplomats, and in cases in which a state is a party. In all other cases, however, the Court has only appellate jurisdiction. It considers cases based on its original jurisdiction very rarely; almost all cases are brought to the Supreme Court on appeal. In practice, the only original jurisdiction cases heard by the Court are disputes between two or more states.

The power of the Supreme Court to consider appeals from state courts, rather than just federal courts, was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789 and upheld early in the Court's history, by its rulings in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816) and Cohens v. Virginia (1821). The Supreme Court is the only federal court that has jurisdiction over direct appeals from state court decisions, although there are several devices that permit so-called "collateral review" of state cases.

 

                 

 

             Justices as Circuit Justices

The United States is divided into thirteen circuit courts of appeals, each of which is assigned a "Circuit Justice" from the Supreme Court. Although this concept has been in continuous existence throughout the history of the republic, its meaning has changed through time.

Under the Judiciary Act of 1789, each Justice was required to "ride circuit," or to travel within the assigned circuit and consider cases alongside local judges. This practice encountered opposition from many Justices, who cited the difficulty of travel. Moreover, several individuals opposed it because a Justice could not be expected to be impartial in an appeal if he had previously decided the same case while riding circuit. Circuit riding was abolished in 1891. Today, the duties of a "Circuit Justice" are generally limited to receiving and deciding requests for stays in cases coming from the circuit or circuits to which the Justice is assigned, and other clerical tasks such as addressing certain requests for extensions of time. A Circuit Justice may (but in practice almost never does) sit as a judge of that circuit. When he or she does so, a Circuit Justice has seniority over the Chief Judge of that circuit.

The Chief Justice is traditionally assigned to the District of Columbia Circuit, the Federal Circuit and the Fourth Circuit, which includes Maryland and Virginia, the states surrounding the District of Columbia. Each Associate Justice is assigned to one or two judicial circuits.

The circuit assignments often reflect the geographic regions where the assigned Justices served as judges or practitioners before joining the Supreme Court. Five of the current Justices are assigned to circuits on which they once sat as circuit judges: Chief Justice Roberts (D.C. Circuit), Justice Breyer (First Circuit), Justice Alito (Third Circuit), Justice Stevens (Seventh Circuit), and Justice Kennedy (Ninth Circuit). Furthermore, Justices Thomas and Ginsburg are assigned to the circuits that include their home states (the Eleventh and Second Circuits, respectively).

                          Size of the Court

The United States Constitution does not specify the size of the Supreme Court, but Article III authorizes the Congress to fix the number of justices. The Judiciary Act of 1789 called for the appointment of six justices. As the country grew geographically, Congress increased the number of justices to correspond with the growing number of judicial circuits: the court was expanded to seven members in 1807, nine in 1837 and ten in 1863.

At the request of Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act (1866) which provided that the next three justices to retire would not be replaced; thus, the size of the Court should have eventually reached seven by attrition. Consequently, one seat was removed in 1866 and a second in 1867. However, this law did not play out to completion, for in the Judiciary Act of 1869,[74] also known as the Circuit Judges Act, the number of justices was again set at nine, where it has since remained.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to expand the Court in 1937, seeking to appoint an additional justice for each incumbent justice who reached the age of 70 years 6 months and refused retirement; under Roosevelt's proposal, such appointments would continue until the Court reached a maximum size of 15 justices. Ostensibly, the proposal was made to ease the burdens of the docket on the elderly judges, but the President's actual purpose was to pack the Court with justices who would support New Deal policies and legislation.[75] This plan, usually called the "Court-packing Plan", failed in Congress and proved a political disaster for Roosevelt.[76] The balance of the Court shifted with the retirement of Willis Van Devanter and the confirmation of Hugo Black in August 1937. By the end of 1941, Roosevelt had appointed seven Supreme Court justices and elevated Harlan Fiske Stone to Chief Justice.[77]

             Appointment and confirmation

Article Two of the United States Constitution gives the President power to appoint Justices "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate". Most Presidents nominate candidates who broadly share their ideological views, although a Justice's decisions may end up being contrary to what the nominating President anticipated. Because the Constitution does not set any qualifications for service as a Justice, the President may nominate anyone to serve. However, that person must receive the confirmation of the Senate.

In modern times, the confirmation process has attracted considerable attention from the press, and from advocacy groups, which lobby senators to confirm or to reject a nominee, depending on whether the nominee's track record aligns with the group's views. The Senate Judiciary Committee conducts hearings and votes on whether the nomination should go to the full Senate with a positive, negative or neutral report. The Committee's practice of personally interviewing nominees is relatively recent; the first nominee to appear before the committee was Harlan Fiske Stone in 1925, who sought to quell concerns about his links to Wall Street. However, the modern practice of questioning began with John Marshall Harlan II in 1955.[78] A simple majority vote is required to confirm or to reject a nominee. Once the Committee reports out the nomination, the whole Senate considers it. Rejections are relatively uncommon; the Senate has explicitly rejected twelve Supreme Court nominees in its history. The most recent rejection of a nominee by vote of the full Senate came in 1987, when the Senate refused to confirm Robert Bork.

Not everyone nominated by the President has received a floor vote in the Senate. Although Senate rules do not necessarily allow a negative vote in committee to block a Supreme Court nomination, a nominee may be filibustered once debate on the nomination has begun in the full Senate. A filibuster indefinitely prolongs the debate, preventing a final vote on the nominee. While senators may attempt to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee in an attempt to thwart confirmation, no nomination for Associate Justice has ever been filibustered. However, President Lyndon Johnson's nomination of sitting Associate Justice Abe Fortas to succeed Earl Warren as Chief Justice was successfully filibustered in 1968. The President may also withdraw a nominee's name before the actual confirmation vote occurs. This usually happens when the President feels that the nominee has little chance of being confirmed: most recently, President George W. Bush withdrew his nomination of Harriet Miers before Committee hearings had begun.

Once the Senate confirms the nomination by an affirmative vote, the President must prepare and sign a commission, and have the Seal of the Department of Justice affixed to the document before the new Justice can take office.[80] The seniority of an associate justice is based on the date of commissioning, not the date of confirmation or swearing-in.[81]

                        Case selection

Nearly all cases come before the court by way of petitions for writs of certiorari, commonly referred to as "cert". The Court may review any case in the federal courts of appeals "by writ of certiorari granted upon the petition of any party to any civil or criminal case".[104] The Court may only review "final judgments rendered by the highest court of a state in which a decision could be had" if those judgments involve a question of federal statutory or constitutional law.[105] The party that lost in the lower court is the petitioner and the party that prevailed is the respondent. All case names before the Court are styled petitioner v. respondent, regardless of which party initiated the lawsuit in the trial court. For example, criminal prosecutions are brought in the name of the state and against an individual, as in State of Arizona v. Ernesto Miranda. If the defendant is convicted, and his conviction then is affirmed on appeal in the state supreme court, when he petitions for cert the name of the case becomes Miranda v. Arizona.

There are situations where the Court has original jurisdiction, such as when two states have a dispute against each other, or when there is a dispute between the United States and a state. In such instances, a case is filed with the Supreme Court directly. Examples of such cases include United States v. Texas, a case to determine whether a parcel of land belonged to the United States or to Texas, and Virginia v. Tennessee, a case turning on whether an incorrectly drawn boundary between two states can be changed by a state court, and whether the setting of the correct boundary requires Congressional approval. Although it has not happened since 1794 in the case of Georgia v. Brailsford, parties in an action at law in which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction may request that a jury determine issues of fact.[106]

The common shorthand name for cases is typically the first party (the petitioner). For example, Brown v. Board of Education is referred to simply as Brown, and Roe v. Wade as Roe. The exception to this rule is when the name of a state, or the United States, or some government entity, is the first listed party. In that instance, the name of the second party is the shorthand name. For example, Iowa v. Tovar is referred to simply as Tovar, and Gonzales v. Raich is referred to simply as Raich, because the first party, Alberto Gonzales, was sued in his official capacity as the United States Attorney General.

A cert petition is voted on at a session of the court called a conference. A conference is a private meeting of the nine Justices by themselves; the public and the Justices' clerks are excluded. If four Justices vote to grant the petition, the case proceeds to the briefing stage; otherwise, the case ends. Except in death penalty cases and other cases in which the Court orders briefing from the respondent, the respondent may, but is not required to, file a response to the cert petition.

The court grants a petition for cert only for "compelling reasons," spelled out in the court's Rule 10. Such reasons include:

-Resolving a conflict in the interpretation of a federal law or a provision of the federal Constitution

-Correcting an egregious departure from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings

-Resolving an important question of federal law, or to expressly review a decision of a lower court that conflicts directly with a previous decision of the Court.

 

The Constitution does not explicitly grant the Supreme Court the power of judicial review; nevertheless, the power of this Court to overturn laws and executive actions it deems unlawful or unconstitutional is a well-established precedent. Many of the Founding Fathers accepted the notion of judicial review; in Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton wrote: "A Constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute." The Supreme Court first established its power to declare laws unconstitutional in Marbury v. Madison (1803), consummating the system of checks and balances. This power allows judges to have the last word on allocation of authority among the three branches of the federal government, which grants them the ability to set bounds to their own authority, as well as to their immunity from outside checks and balances.

The Supreme Court cannot directly enforce its rulings; instead, it relies on respect for the Constitution and for the law for adherence to its judgments. One notable instance of nonacquiescence came in 1832, when the state of Georgia ignored the Supreme Court's decision in Worcester v. Georgia. President Andrew Jackson, who sided with the Georgia courts, is supposed to have remarked, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!";[112] however, this alleged quotation has been disputed. State militia in the South also resisted the desegregation of public schools after the 1954 judgment Brown v. Board of Education. More recently, many feared that President Richard Nixon would refuse to comply with the Court's order in United States v. Nixon (1974) to surrender the Watergate tapes. Nixon, however, ultimately complied with the Supreme Court's ruling.

Some argue that the Supreme Court is "the most separated and least checked of all branches of government."[113] Justices are not required to stand for election by virtue of their tenure "during good behavior," and their pay may "not be diminished" while they hold their position (Section 1 of Article Three). Though subject to the process of impeachment, only one Justice has ever been impeached and no Supreme Court Justice has been removed from office. Supreme Court decisions have been purposefully overridden by constitutional amendment in only four instances: the Eleventh Amendment overturned Chisholm v. Georgia (1793); the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments in effect overturned Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857); the Sixteenth Amendment reversed Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. (1895); and the Twenty-sixth Amendment overturned some portions of Oregon v. Mitchell (1970). However, when the Court rules on matters involving the interpretation of laws rather than of the Constitution, simple legislative action can reverse the decisions (for example, in 2009 Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter act, superseding the limitations given in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in 2007). Also, the Supreme Court is not immune from political and institutional restraints: lower federal courts and state courts sometimes resist doctrinal innovations, as do law enforcement officials.[114]

In addition, the other two branches can restrain the Court through other mechanisms. Congress can increase the number of justices, giving the President power to influence future decisions by appointments (as in Roosevelt's Court Packing Plan discussed above). Congress can pass legislation that restricts the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and other federal courts over certain topics and cases: this is suggested by language in Section 2 of Article Three, where the appellate jurisdiction is granted "with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." The Court sanctioned such congressional action in the Reconstruction case ex parte McCardle (1869), though it rejected Congress' power to dictate how particular cases must be decided in United States v. Klein (1871).