Blog #2 - U.S. Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is the highest court system in the federal judiciary in the United States. Their job is to protect civil rights by denying laws that violate the Constitution. Four out of the nine Justices have to vote for the case for a case to be accepted. They typically stay on the board of Justices for about 16 years after being appointed by the president of the United States. The Supreme Court also sets the limit on other governments so the higher majorities don't pass laws that could affect the lower minorities negatively. 

While watching the two videos, I learned more about the process of what the Justices have to go through in deciding a law. Newly arrived petitions with written arguments go to the Justice chambers once a week. In each of their chambers, there is a small staff of secretaries and law clerks who have their own responsibilities. Then the Justices meet weekly to choose which cases are accepted and denied. From there the issue is taken through an oral argument in the courtroom. Talking with the attorney for about 30 minutes, along with the nine Justices asking questions. After the oral argument, they head to the conference room where it's only the nine justices discussing whether to vote on a case. After, one of the Justices on the majority side has to write an opinion, explaining the legal reasons for the decision. This could take up to four weeks just writing a draft. The draft goes to the nine justices and could be rewritten many more times. They are prepared to have the final opinion done and ready to release to the audience by late June.    

A few key takeaways from the videos are the confirmation process through the Judicial System is the most important process. Once confirmed they are primarily responsible to the law. The public no longer has a direct ability to influence the decision through the ballot. Meaning the Supreme Court has the final say in creating a new law for the people. Thinking about whether the petition is constitutional.  Another key takeaway Justice O'Connor talked about was no matter who the person is, whether is a high authority person or a prisoner writing a petition. It gets the same consideration as all the other ones as well. Which I believe is incredible with the amount of people that live in the United States. Everyone has an equal opportunity to make a difference in our world. Overall, the court tries to play it straight, not picking political sides or views. But solely thinking about whether it is constitutional. 

Something that stood out to me the most was the amount of cases to court receives. They receive about 100 cases per week. They have to go through them and the court only selects a few of them for further consideration. By the end of the year, they would have selected about 100 cases. I did some further research myself on how they keep track of all the cases they accept. According to the Supreme Court procedures, there is a "cert pool" where they keep track of all the petitions. Dividing the work among the law clerks that write up recommendations and notes they present to the Justices.   

Lastly, after doing research and watching the two videos, I didn't realize how much process has gone into deciding new laws. The amount of pressure and work on deciding on problems. Something that was mentioned in the video was the Supreme Court has to wait for problems to come to them. They can't just decide to fix this problem because they want to. They have to wait for the people's problems to come to them. Unlike other governments or even the President who could choose which problem to work through and fix. Overall, though the amount of power the Supreme Court has it's amazing, and with out them, we wouldn't have the most freedom country in the world.