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Essay on supreme court history
The history of usa courts
Clarence thomas biography essay
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A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdiction. The Supreme Court is the final judge involving laws of Congress, and the Constitution. The Supreme Court is allowed to tell the President if his actions are not allowed by the Constitution. They are also allowed to tell the government and the congress if one of their laws breaks a rule in the constitution. The Supreme Court also protects civil rights and liberties by removing laws that violate the Constitution. They also set appropriate limits on democratic government to make sure they don’t pass laws that harm or take advantage of minorities.
There is one Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices of the United States Supreme Court. The eight Associate Justices are appointed by the President and they must also be confirmed by the Senate.
Sonia Maria Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of
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President George Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, she served from 1992–1998. She then judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1998–2009. President Barack Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Stephen Gerald Breyer is another Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, he has been serving since August 3, 1994. President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Breyer is associated with the more liberal side of the Court. Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, he has been serving since October 23, 1991. He is the second African American to serve on the court. President Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Antonin Gregory Scalia was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his recent death in 2016. Scalia was nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Anthony McLeod Kennedy is the senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of
Judge Sonia Sotomayor was nominated to replace Supreme Court Justice Souter on June 1, 2009 by President Barack Obama. After extensive Senate hearings by the Committee on the Judiciary, Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed by the United States Senate with a 68 to 31 vote on August 6th, 2009. (Supreme Court) Although it was clear that Republicans had no intention to filibuster the nomination, partisan lines were clearly divided both during the committee hearings and illustrated in the Senate votes. However, due to the Democratic Majority in the Senate, it was clear that Sotomayor would be confirmed. During the hearings, Sotomayor answered the questions honestly, eloquently, and cautiously. During questioning, it was evident which issues were most important to the Senate: impartiality, activism and the ‘wise’ Latina.
The Constitution confers judicial power on the Supreme Court and on inferior courts as created by Congress (Hames & Ekern, 2013). Judicial review is the power of the court to interpret the Constitution and invalidate conflicting laws.
Justice Clarence Thomas was born in June 1948 and grew up in Georgia. He graduated at Yale Law School and served as the Assistant Attorney General in Missouri, practicing law in the private sector. In 1981 he was appointed Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education one year later, Justice Thomas was appointed Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by President Ronald Reagan. By 1991 Justice Thomas was nominated by Bush to fill Thurgood Marshall’s seat on the United States Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court is the highest judicial body in the United States. Since its creation in 1789, 112 justices have served on the Court. Of these 112 justices, four of them are women. President Ronald Reagan appointed the first female justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, in 1981; she served for 25 years. Sandra Day O’Connor changed the face of women in politics.
Supreme Court and Court of Appeals judges are elected in nonpartisan statewide elections. Mid-term vacancices are filled by appointment. State law requires that nominees are state residents and have practiced law for a minimum of seven years.
The Supreme Court is the highest level of the United States Court System. Like all courts, the cases must be based off of actual, concrete disputes. Abstract, hypothetical cases are not accepted. Each case is made up of the plaintiff (Suing) party, and the defendant (Suee? Not the hog call, the one being sued) party, a judge to preside over the session, and the jury of unbiased citizens to decide the fate of the case (Edwards, 505). Unlike many courts, the Supreme Court is limited in the nature of the cases that it can have original jurisdiction over. The U.S. Supreme Court only has original jurisdiction in cases involving foreign
In 1787 Article three of the constitution created the Supreme Court, but not until 1789 was it configured. The way it was originally set up was with one Chief Justice and five associate judges, with all six members being appointed for life. This court serves as the “supreme law of the land”, it has the power to determine if state or federal laws are in conflict with how the Court interprets the constitution.
The Supreme Court, which sees almost 150 petitions per week, called cert petitions, must carefully select the cases that they want to spend their time and effort on (Savage 981). If they didn’t select them carefully, the nine justices would quickly be overrun, so they have put in place a program to weed through the court cases to pick out the small number they will discuss. There are a few criteria that are used to judge whether or not a case will be tried. The first is whether or not the lower courts decided the case based on another one of the Supreme Court’s decisions for they will investigate these in order to withhold or draw back their conclusion that they made in their court case. Another is the case’s party alignment: sometimes the justices will pick cases that will align with their party beliefs, like trying to get a death row inmate off of his death sentence. They also make claims about the “life” of the case- the Supreme Court only hears “live” cases- they do not try to go back in time and re-mark a case that has long since been decided (Savage 981). Lastly, they like to take cases where the lower courts did not decide with one another -these cases can have t o do with interpretations of the law that have been left up to the lower courts and should be specifically defined by the Supreme Court (Savage 982).
The Supreme Court of the United States has the highest authority in the Judicial Branch and is the third branch of government. The function of the Supreme Court is to interpret the Constitution. The Supreme Court looks at federal and state statues and executive actions to determine if they comply with the United States Constitution. On the Supreme Court, there are nine justices that hear cases that have been appealed through the justice system. When the Supreme Court rules in a case that is the la...
The life of every American citizen, whether they realize it or not, is influenced by one entity--the United States Supreme Court. This part of government ensures that the freedoms of the American people are protected by checking the laws that are passed by Congress and the actions taken by the President. While the judicial branch may have developed later than its counterparts, many of the powers the Supreme Court exercises required years of deliberation to perfect. In the early years of the Supreme Court, one man’s judgement influenced the powers of the court systems for years to come. John Marshall was the chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, and as the only lasting Federalist influence in a newly Democratic-Republican government, he and his fellow justices sought to perpetuate their Federalist principles in the United States’ court system. In one of the most memorable court cases of all time--the case of Marbury v. Madison-- Marshall established the idea of judicial review and strengthened the power of the judicial branch in the government. Abiding by his Federalist ideals, Marshall decided cases that would explicitly limit the power of the state government and broaden the strengths of the national government. Lastly, the Marshall Court was infamous for determining the results of cases that dealt with the interpretation of the Constitution and the importance of contracts in American society. The Marshall Court, over the span of a mere three decades, managed to influence the life of every American citizen even to this day by impacting the development of the judicial branch, establishing a boundary between the state and national government, and making declarations on the sanctity of contracts ("The Marshall Court"...
... their rulings. They do not make the laws; that is the job of Congress. Their primary goal is to interpret and decide the constitutionality of federal law. As stated previously from Section 1 of Article 3 of the Constitution about the establishment of the Supreme Court and creation of the lower federal courts, the combination of these court systems represents the original Framer’s compromise to establish a national court and allow state courts to exercise jurisdiction in disputes falling under federal law.
The court determines whether on not an action is constitutional or not through the process of judicial review. Not only do they keep the Legislative and Executive branch in line, they keep other courts in line. Many and very few cases require the Supreme Court to review and overturn decision. Example are the Miranda v. Arizona cases where the police was in the wrong by violating Miranda’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment therefore ruling in Miranda’s favor. Also the Weeks v. United States case was an example of the Fourth and Fifth Amendment being violated was again ruling in the defendent’s favour. Finally, the Plessey v. Furguson case was a little different really displaying the courts power to interpret laws and ruling in the prosecuter’s favour. The Judicial Branch is certainly not the weakest branch and has a more important role than many people
The Supreme Court has the highest authority in this country and throughout its existence the diversity of people in it had been lacking. On May 29, 2009 a new Supreme Court Justice was nominated, she was the first Latina to be appointed to this position and eventually was confirmed by the senate. Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination speech was a moment that brought joy to many Latinos who often did not feel represented in higher positions of authority in this country. She was the first to break the norm for this and in the speech she delivered to the country via new stations she was able to present to the country what qualified her as a Supreme Court Justice. Former President Barack Obama presented Sotomayor as a person
The Supreme Court and Federal court have the same authority as in the Constitution. This system is called checks and balances which prevents the sole power of any one of the three branches. In addition, this power can be divided between the states and Federal government. The Federal government’s role in “domestic and foreign affairs and how they have grown” (Fe...
The significant impact Robert Dahl’s article, “Decision-Making in a Democracy: the Supreme Court as a National Policy-Maker” created for our thought on the Supreme Court it that it thoroughly paved the way towards exemplifying the relationship between public opinion and the United States Supreme Court. Dahl significantly was able to provide linkages between the Supreme Court and the environment that surrounds it in order for others to better understand the fundamental aspects that link the two together and explore possible reasoning and potential outcomes of the Court.