The Supreme Court of the United States of America (SCOTUS) comprises one chief justice and eight associate justices. They meet in the Supreme Court Building, built in 1935 in the Greco-Roman style, at One First Street in Washington, D.C. The words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved into the marble above the entrance. Other notable details include decorative turtles that encircle the base of exterior lamp poles. The turtles are symbols of the deliberative, some would say slow, pace of justice.
BALANCE OF POWER
The Supreme Court acts as a check on the power of the executive and legislative branches of US government. It considers cases, around eighty per term, that have far-reaching implications beyond the two sides involved in the dispute. It is apolitical and, while it has no power to enforce its decisions, they can shapepolicy as profoundly as any law passed by Congress.
PROCEEDINGS
Supreme Court hearings are open to the public. Each side has thirty minutes to present its case orally during which time the justices, in long black robes, ask questions and debate with one another. After the hearing, the justices discuss the case in private. Because there are nine of them, one side always wins. There is rarely total agreement, given that these are cases in which lower courts have often reached conflicting decisions. With their final judgment, which must be handed down within the term, the Court releases explanations for each side.
NINE OLD MEN
There has been a lot of attention on the Court recently because of the way justices are replaced. Each has lifetime tenure, meaning they remain on the Court until they resign, retire, die or are removed from office due to ‘bad behaviour’. Should a vacancy occur, the President, with the consent of the Senate, appoints a new justice; this is controversial, given the obvious interest of the President in keeping the Court on his side. In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt got angry with the Court when they kept voting against his New Deal. Calling them “nine old men”, he tried to pack the Court with his own people, upon which threat the justices became more conciliatory. Incidentally, only five women have ever served as justices – three, currently.
civil rights movement
From the 1940s to the 1980s, the Supreme Court tended to be more liberal than politics itself. In the Civil Rights Movement, the Court led the way: in a famous 1954 case, the justices ruled that racial segregation in public places was unconstitutional, although it took many years for school districts to desegregate. As Thurgood Marshall, the Court’s first African-American justice and a proponent of civil rights, said: “You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”
POWEr balance
In 1973 a landmark ruling was made in a case called Roe v. Wade. The court ruled that the US Constitution protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion, without excessive government restriction. Since then, however, political affiliations have come into play. By 2009, the ideological distance between the Democratic and Republican parties had widened, with the latter becoming much more right-wing. Justices appointed by recent Republican presidents reflected the reversal of the Party’s policy from a pro-abortion (or pro-choice) to an anti-abortion (or pro-life) standpoint, to appeal to their large Evangelical Christian voter base.
apolitical
Currently, six of the nine Supreme Court justices are Republican appointees, placing the future of rulings now associated with Democrat ideology in doubt. Led by chief justice John Roberts, however, the Supreme Court has so far defended its role as an apolitical institution committed only to a judicial defence of the US Constitution.
who is who in the supreme COURT
In recent years, while conservative justices predominate, the Supreme Court’s decisions have so far pleasantly surprised Democrats, with chief justice
1.John Roberts: a Bush Jr. appointee, upholding LGBTQ, abortion and immigration rights, as well as Obama’s healthcare act. However, a polemical appointment early this term means the Court has a more pronounced split of six conservative to three liberal members, the associate justices being:
2.Clarence Thomas: The longest-serving member of the Court and the second African-American justice in its history. Appointed by Bush Sr. in 1991, Thomas is the antithesis of Thurgood Marshall, the man he replaced. The most conservative voice on the court to date, Thomas is married to the lobbyist Virginia Lamp, who has described herself as ‘an ambassador to the Tea Party’.
3.Stephen G. Breyer: At eighty-two, the oldest Supreme Court justice serving. Appointed by Bill Clinton in 1994, he has consistently voted in favor of abortion rights.
4. Samuel A. Alito, Jr.:Joining the Court in 2006 thanks to Bush Jr., Alito is of Italian-American heritage and previously served in the US Army. He is firmly conservative.
5.Sonia Sotomayor: An Obama appointee in 2009, Sotomayor is the second woman to serve and the Court’s first Hispanic justice. The daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, she is one of more liberal members of the Court.
6.Elena Kagan: Serving since 2010, liberal-leaning Kagan was influential in a 2017 landmark case restricting the permissible uses of race in drawing congressional districts.
7.Neil Gorsuch: Trump’s first appointee in 2017. A place had become vacant in early 2016, but the Senate blocked attempts to place Obama’s nominee, as it was an election year. As a result, the Court had eight members for the majority of its term and was reluctant to hear cases for fear of deadlock.
8.Brett Kavanaugh: despite two allegations of sexual assault against Kavanagh and further evidence of misconduct dating to the 1980s, Trump managed to get his nominee approved by a Republican-dominated Senate in 2018.
9. Amy Coney Barrett: As she was appointed in October just days before the election, Democrats protested about her appointment, to no avail. A devout Catholic, she has a history of voting against abortion rights, voting rights, prisoners’ rights and is particularly in favour of gun rights. She replaces the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court’s most liberal justice.