Supreme Court of the United States

From RationalWiki
(Difference between revisions)
Jump to: navigation, search
Line 19: Line 19:
  
 
== See also ==
 
== See also ==
*Our {{cat|Supreme Court cases|category for Supreme Court cases}}.
+
*Our {{cat|Category:US Supreme Court cases|category for Supreme Court cases}}.
 
*[[As-applied challenge]]
 
*[[As-applied challenge]]
  

Revision as of 21:46, 30 March 2009

Part of the series on the

U.S. Constitution

Const.gif
Standards of review
Other legal theories
Defining moments in law
Modalities of Constitutional Law
Issues in Constitutional Law


The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) consists of nine really old people who sit in judgment on whether or not laws (local, state, or federal) are in compliance with the Constitution.

The members, or "associate justices", are appointed by the President, and take office upon confirmation by the Senate (which is not always forthcoming).

One member serves as "chief justice", who, although still only having one vote on cases, has the interesting and sometimes important power to assign the writing of majority decisions (when they are in the majority) to one of the associates. This can be used to influence the exact nature of a decision - the chief justice might vote with a four justice minority (or more importantly, a five justice majority) in order to assign the decision writing to a justice with a weaker stand than the other members of the majority.

In practice the most powerful member of the Court is rarely the Chief Justice but the one or two "moderate" members who are very often the swing vote on contentious issues.

Contents

Current bench

Other supreme courts

Most of the US states have their own supreme courts.

Also, many other countries have similar ultimate judicial arbiters with one name or another.

See also

Footnotes

  1. During his infamous 27 April 2008 interview on CBS 60 Minutes, Antonin Scalia claimed that torture may be cruel and unusual, but it is not punishment because the prisoner has not yet been convicted of a crime. At that point it's just interrogation. Hear that, all you nightstick happy cops out there? You can beat the hell out of a suspect before he/she has been convicted, but not after!
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Tools
support