History & Workings of The U.S Supreme Court

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

History & Workings of The U.S Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is the most powerful judicial body on Earth that shapes and displays the United States Constitution. The court is made up of nine justices. They receive approximately 7,000 cases a year but only accept around 100 of them. Because the court only selects a small number of cases per year, these cases have to fit a criteria that is highly selective. Because of this highly selective process, The Supreme Court can affect society as a whole, not just the legal world.

 The Supreme Court has a deep rich history that was very surprising to me. The Dred Scott v. Sandford case was a controversial time for the Supreme Court. Part I explains that Dred Scott was an enslaved Black man who tried to fight for his freedom in a court of law. His case went all the way to the Supreme Court where they upheld slavery in the United States territories denying the legality of Black citizenship in America. 

I find it interesting that it wasn’t just the South that wanted power to be left to the states. The Supreme Court left the issue to the states claiming that the U.S could not ban slavery as a whole. The American public was not always in favor of the Supreme Court, but eventually, the court started to gain the public's respect.

I imagine it did take some time for America to adjust to this court system. Living in a democracy, a lot of positions in the United States are voted on by the public. The Supreme Court differs from this system as the justices are appointed by the president. Unlike a senator, a Supreme Court justice cannot come into a room and present a problem, they have to wait for the problems to come to them.

Not long after the court approves the case they hold the oral argument. An oral argument is where lawyers on the opposing side of each case are allowed 30 minutes to make their arguments before the court. Justice Kennedy surprised me in Part II by explaining that people think the oral argument is a dialogue between the justice and the attorney, but that is a misconception. It is a conversation the court is having with itself through the attorney. This is when the justice's ask their hard questions to get a better look at the case. The Supreme Court communicates and maneuvers in a very unique way. 

The system of having a Supreme Court will forever be a controversial topic. Some people say that it's undemocratic, too conservative, and biased together. However, there is a lot the public does not know about the Supreme Court. These videos changed the way I thought of The Supreme Court. I was under the impression that the Supreme Court was just secretive and serious judges who never shared their mysterious ways with the public. But as the justices explained in the videos the court has no inside story and that nothing is secretive because everything is out there in the opinion. Through the videos, I got to see the justice's personality and humor, and reminded me that they are just people too.