Jeffery Rosen 's The Supreme Court

The current Supreme Court membership is comprised of nine Supreme Court Justices. One of which is the Chief Justice and the other eight are the Associate Justices. The Justices are Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., and Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr.

Also commonly referred to as The Steel Seizure Case, it was a United States Supreme Court decision that limited the power of the President of the United States to seize private property in the absence of either specifically enumerated authority under Article Two of the US Constitution or statutory authority conferred on him by Congress. The Majority decision was that the President had no power to act except in those cases expressly or implicitly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress.

Summary In Mark Tushnet’s book “A Court Divided,” Tushnet illustrates how the Supreme Court’s ideals have changed with every new president, cultural movement and Death of a fellow court member. We can see the change as Goldwater leads into Regan, and so on with every republican president up to present day. The Court’s Republican majority doesn't always agree on every issue, such as on issues like abortion or homosexual rights, the opinions were split between the harsher, older Republicans, and the softer, younger Republicans.

The court case of Marbury v. Madison (1803) is credited and widely believed to be the creator of the “unprecedented” concept of Judicial Review. John Marshall, the Supreme Court Justice at the time, is lionized as a pioneer of Constitutional justice, but, in the past, was never really recognized as so. What needs to be clarified is that nothing in history is truly unprecedented, and Marbury v. Madison’s modern glorification is merely a product of years of disagreements on the validity of judicial review, fueled by court cases like Eakin v. Raub; John Marshall was also never really recognized in the past as the creator of judicial review, as shown in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford.

The book “Judicial Tyranny The New Kings of America?” is a compilation of articles and speeches. It is compiled by Mark Sutherland and includes writings from famed Christian personality James C. Dobson Chief Justice Roy Moore, Ambassador Alan Keyes, U.s Attorney General Ed Meese, among others. The book is a call to political action. It is aimed at Christian readers and the writers all argue that Christian politics equals constitutional purism. It is specifically meant to invoke constitutional responses and activism. Each chapter, twenty in all, are a few pages long and systematically decry the current judicial system and explain the lack of constitutional basis for their current level of power.

The Supreme Court of the United States is perhaps the most eminent judicial branch in the world and has served for a model for justice and democracy. However the Court is not exempted from scrutiny, and critics question the increasing politicized nature of the Court, from the appointment process to the nature of their decisions in landmark cases like; Dred Scott v. Sandford, Roe v. Wade to Bush v. Gore. Based on empirical evidence, this essay argues that the United States Supreme Court today is severely influenced by politics and not as much by law- at least in practice. Indeed, robust partisanship of the political interests of the President and Congress imposes on the constitutional function of the Court.

In 1803, the Supreme Court’s Marbury v. Madison decision would forever alter the political framework of the United States. Resulting in the creation of judicial review—the power to determine if a piece of legislation is constitutional, that is, whether or not it infringes on the provisions of existing law —the Marbury v. Madison decision arguably made the judicial branch the most powerful division of the federal government. Today, judicial review is a fundamental part of American government, standing as a testament of the significance of the historical decision. By first analyzing the political history of the famous case and then by predicting its lasting political consequences, one will find that Marbury v. Madison secured a balance of power in American government that is integral to maintaining the ideologies of checks and balances and civil liberties. Likewise, political scholars will find that the judicial branch of government bears the greatest political responsibility, ultimately having the most influential power in the federal government. As a political arbitrator, the Supreme Court takes its place as the ultimate guardian of American democratic values; it supports the inimitable role of safeguarding American society from the ill will of the majority and also from the ill judgements of its sister branches.

The Brethren, co-authored by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, is an in-depth documentary of the United States Supreme Court from 1969 to 1975, under the leadership of Warren Burger. The book attempts to present the reader with what "really" goes on in the Supreme Court. It describes the conferences, the personality of justices, and how justice's feel toward each other, items which are generally hidden from the public. This book is comparable to a lengthy newspaper article. Written more as a source of information than of entertainment, The Brethren is the brutal truth, but not boring. The storytelling is clearly slanted against the Burger court but the overall quality of the work

Political scholar, William Hoffer, accurately describes the Supreme Court to have a strong influence in guiding the United States toward certain political paths. The decisions and rulings established by the Court cause a reaction affecting those within its jurisdiction. Working under the most powerful source of law, the Constitution, the Supreme Court has a heavy influence over the nation’s political fate, but all the power does not reside in their hands. While Hoffer’s opinion of the Court having a strong control over the nation’s political policies hold to be true, there is an established, complex system of checks and balances among the Court, the President, and Congress; so even though each branch holds a portion of power, their decisions may be denied or overruled by mutual agreement within the other branches. Nevertheless, every decision the Court makes has an impact on the nation, and there are several cases that built the foundation of American society and provided a strong foothold for future political establishments and positions that policymakers may base their decisions.

In the article, “A Judge Speaks Out,” Haddon Lee Sarokin discussed how the judiciary system works within the United States Court of Appels. In the article Sarokin expressed how America’s democracy faces problems of inequality and political withdrawal. Throughout the article, Sarokin implies that many decisions made by the judges are not necessarily decisions that would be made based off the Constitution as it should be, but based off the judges giving into the majorities opinions and desires. Sarokin expressed how it takes resilience and loyalty to follow the Constitution and to make decisions that are best for society, while sticking to the principles of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and not being influenced by others or one’s own desires.

“And it is no less true, that personal security and private property rest entirely upon the wisdom, the stability, and the integrity of the courts of justice.” ~Joseph Story. These were the words stated by a memorable jurist, but was becoming forgotten in recent years. Joseph Story was an American judge who lived from Sept. 18, 1779 to Sept. 10, 1845 in Massachusetts. He served in the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845. He went to college at Harvard University, and stood for the Democratic-Republican party. Joseph Story created a book called ‘Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States’, thinking flexibly to overcome Jefferson’s accusations to serve a term in Congress, and illuminated the world by bringing justice

Have you ever wondered why the Supreme Court was founded and what does it do? Our forefathers thought about how they wanted this country to be after fighting so hard to gain their independence. So, they created and wrote the United States Constitution, a living masterpiece that was designed to establish a strong government and yet flexible enough keep the “society’s need for order while protecting the individual’s right to freedom”. To ensure this protection by and for the Constitution, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) was established as the highest court in America. As the final decision maker, the justices are the guardians and interpreters charged with guaranteeing all the citizens of this great land of ours, the promise of “equal justice under the law.” In fact, word to that effect are above the main doorway into the Supreme Court Building. However, it was not until 1803, that the Supreme Court administered their power of judicial review by overturning laws/legislation that were deemed unconstitutional, stating they had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution (The Court, 2016). The rest is history so to speak.

Disagreement is the core of our democracy. It fuels Congressional debates which set forth policy, leads to passionate debates between presidential candidates, and ultimately allows people with different ideas to unify under one government. Separate from these ideological differences and massive arguments, supposedly, is the court system. In the views of a constrained court, judges don’t make laws, they only enforce their rules in compliance with the Constitution. However, as is clearly evident in the court case Windsor v United States, the Constitution in itself is vague, complicated, and often open to interpretation. In effect, the United States’ courts revolve around applying very few concepts to thousands of disputes. As the

Political socialization begins when we first learn of how our government works and can later help to form our own partisan orientation. This concept supposes that, if one’s parents, peers, and colleagues were all one party affiliation, an individual is more likely to become the same due to the blend of constant exposure and the normalization therein. While this is understood on an average individual level, the question remains: how do justices react to political socialization? Are they, as interpreters of the Constitution, more or less affected by political socialization?

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a conceptual analysis of Richard Posner's empirical theory of judicial behavior. His theory opposes the conventional view which holds that judges are insulated from external pressures so their judicial decisions will be based upon a disinterested understanding of the law. Since economics holds that all people — including judges — attempt to maximize their utilities, Posner thinks that the conventional view is an embarrassment which presumes judges are not rational. His theory holds that the judicial insulation has actually left judges maximizing their utilities by trading judicial utility against leisure utility. Posner's theory presents a challenge to the