Supreme Court Essay

In Supreme Conflict, Jan Crawford Greenburg provides insightful analysis and assessment of the politics surrounding the Supreme Court appointment process of Justices during the Rehnquist Court. Despite having seven conservative nominees the Rehnquist Court was deeply disappointing to those conservatives hoping to reverse decades of progressive rulings on key social issues. Throughout the book Greenburg describes both positive and negative appointments and nominations such as Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas, and David Souter. Greenburg also includes some background on the impact the Warren and Berger Courts had on the Rehnquist and later Roberts Courts.

Abstract — Religious influence on judiciary, especially when it comes to Supreme Court Justices, is a complicated issue, and it has been controversial in U.S.. Talking about judgement for the influence, it’s not all-inclusive by only dividing them into liberals and conservatives, instead, a comprehensive approach is to focus on specific cases.

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.

B) For the first time since 1971, the Supreme Court is likely going to be composed of a majority of liberal justices due to the vacancy caused by the resignation of Antonin Scalia. To fill this vacancy, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, whose political leanings fall between moderate and liberal, but this nomination has not been approved by Congress due to Senate Republicans believing that the incoming president should fill this vacancy. In addition to Scalia’s vacancy, there are a number of potential vacancies in the upcoming years as three current justices are seventy-eight years of age or older; if these vacancies all occur while a Democrat, such as Hillary Clinton, serves as president, it is likely that all three would be filled by liberal justices, making the court split six to three in favor of liberals. This liberal Supreme Court could make many changes related to prison conditions, the death penalty, campaign financing, and abortion. First, the court would potentially eliminate the use of extended periods of solitary confinement on the grounds that this is in conflict with the Eighth Amendment. Likewise, the court would possibly get rid of the death penalty on the basis that it also violates the Eighth Amendment. Additionally, the court could perhaps work to limit the influence of wealthy

As humans we can’t just escape from our own personal opinions and go purely off of an old description of what our founding fathers wanted this country to be. Justices are supposed to be secular and go only by the constitutionality of a law or situation. Conservative justices regularly vote in favor of Conservative opinions, and Liberal justices vote in favor of Liberal opinions, whether or not either opinion actually coincides with the constitution. Connection

In consideration when making appointments would obviously be the candidates gender, race (to appease members of less represented minorities), religious affiliation (their stance on abortion et. al), possibility of judicial activism or restraint, and partisan affiliation (get the backing of your own interest groups or to gain support from the opposing).

The US Supreme Court has a number of powers. These include the power to declare acts of Congress, the executive or state legislatures unconstitutional through the power of judicial review. The supreme court justices are also given the power to interpret the constitution when making decisions, again, through their power of judicial review. It is arguable that it is essential for the supreme court to have such powers in order to allow the American democracy to flourish. However, there is much evidence to suggest that the supreme court holds too much power for an unelected body, thus hindering democracy.

As Hulbary and Walker note in “The Supreme Court Selection Process” (1980), presidents may consider a range of factors when selecting their desired justice, such as age, race, religion and the likelihood of the nomination gaining the Senate’s approval. Thus, it would be reductive to conclude from Segal, Timpone and Howard’s research that shared policy preferences are the primary goal of a nominating president in all cases. The authors’ rightfully acknowledge this by highlighting Dwight Eisenhower’s nomination of William J. Brennan, a justice far more liberal than his appointer who is widely believed to have been chosen as a concession to northern liberals before the 1956 election (pp. 569-570). A more recent example of this trend would be the 2016 nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court by Barack Obama. While it is unlikely that the centrist Garland would have been Obama’s first choice to fill the vacant seat left by Antonin Scalia, he may now represent the least-worst scenario, insofar as he stands a small chance of being approved by an obstructionist Republican Senate. If this occurs, it would surely be treated as a victory by the current White House administration. As such, it is important not to automatically conflate ideological differences between president and justice with a “failed” appointment, a trap that the article occasionally falls into (p.

About 3 weeks ago, President Obama appointed Merrick Garland, a chief judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals in the D.C. Circuit to the Supreme Court. This nomination followed after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia who was a political icon in the eyes of many conservatives. What used to be a more conservative panel of justices had turned into a 4-4 tie. The problem in this case is that it is likely for all the conservatives to support one side of a case or the same for all the liberals in the panel of the justices. If there is a 4-4 tie, the ruling of the lower court stands and in many ways, this could be unpleasant for those who fought hard for their case. To fill this void, President Obama knew he had to appoint that he believed who would be liked by Democrats and Republicans.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized (Fourth Amendment). The text of the Fourth Amendment does not define exactly what “unreasonable search” is. The framers of the constitution left the words “unreasonable search” open in order for the Supreme Court to interpret. Hence, by looking at

In 1789, the final draft of the constitution of the United States came into effect. In article three it calls for "[t]he judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." In the article it neither says the duties, powers, or any organization of the supreme court. If left this up to congress and to the justices of the court itself for these details.

run by school officials, that it could be controlled by them, "so long as their

The doctrine of judicial precedent is based on the principle of stare decisis which means ‘to stand by what has been decided’. It is a common law principle whereby judges are bound to follow previous decisions in cases where the material facts are sufficiently similar and the earlier decision was made in a court above the current one in the court hierarchy. This doctrine of precedent is extremely strong in English law as it ensures fairness and consistency and it highlights the importance of case law in our legal system. Black's Law Dictionary defines "precedent" as a "rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases."

The combination of the nomination and majority vote is working better than any other position-filling strategies. There is a high legitimacy when the President chooses who he suspects will fulfill the position to the greatest of their ability. This is brought to light by how our President Obama has spent a month seeking for his hopeful successor of former Justice John Paul Stevens, in this case Elena Kagan (Baker Zeleny). President Obama had interviewed other potential nominees, clearly spending substantial time acquainting himself with their qualifications, met or unmet, towards the prestige of the Supreme Court Justice. When the President allots that much time to find a viable successor in the Supreme Court it clarifies how crucial it is to fill the position with dignity. The commonplace lengthy process of searching for the next Justice and the majority vote required by the Senate is too much to ignore. Even if the President was careless enough to haphazardly select a Justice, the Senate consists of 100 members of various parties who could nullify the Presidents nominee by a majority vote against said person. The most prominent backup in the process of admitting a Justice is the multi-partied Senate, and as long as they are not corrupt there will be a lock against easy access to the position of the Supreme Court Justice. Another reason to stay parallel to the U.S. Constitution is the dilemma of public elections and how scarce they are in proportion to the