Blog Post #2 (Supreme Court)

    The Supreme Court is the most powerful court in the United States. It gets its power from the trust earned by the people. The people trusts the Supreme Court to make the right decision and will obey the Court when they made a verdict. The Supreme Court's job is to safe guard liberty, preserve the union, upholding the rule of law, and checks and balances the other branches of government. The court deals with human dilemmas and controversies and every petition gets the same individual consideration, no matter who wrote it. Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president and most of the time presidents will shape the court to their liking. In the history of the U.S., just over 100 Supreme Court justices have been nominated, serving an average of 16 years. When justices are confirmed, the public no longer has the ability to directly influence the decision through voting. Every week, the Court receives more than 100 new cases, most are petitions for certiorari. The job of the justices is to decide which case to work on and they meet weekly in conference to decide which case to accept. The Supreme Court hears cases in public and lawyers on each side have 30 minutes to present their argument to the justices. After the justices hear the argument, they gather in the conference room to vote on the decision for the case. After they voted, one justice on the majority side is assigned to write and opinion explaining the legal reasons for the decision. Other justices can also write a separate opinion dissenting from the decision. Opinions can be one page or 80 pages or more, when there are multiple opinions from other justices. The court tradition is to announce decisions by the end of the term in late June and the press simplifies the opinions and released them to the public.