THE SUPREME COURT

What you need to know about...

Facts There are nine judges on the

court The judges are called “justices” The main justice is called the

“Chief Justice” Justices are appointed by the

President and approved by the U.S. Senate

They serve for life

The Current Court

Elena Kagan (Obama appointee, 2010, 55 years old)

Sonia Sotomayor (Obama, 2009, 61)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Clinton, 1993, 82)

Stephen Breyer (Clinton, 1994, 77)

Chief JusticeJohn Roberts (Bush 43, 2005, 60)

Antonin Scalia (Reagan, 1986, 79)

Clarence Thomas (Bush 41, 1991, 67)

Samuel Alito (Bush 43, 2006, 65)

Swing/moderate conservativeAnthony Kennedy (Reagan, 1987, 79)

What Cases They only hear cases that are brought

to them by people who are unhappy with an earlier ruling (called “appeal”)

Of thousands of cases brought to them each year, they only hear about 50.

The cases always have something to do with the Constitution

The first name is always the person doing the suing (Plessy v. Ferguson) In this case, Plessy is suing Ferguson

Oral Arguments The day of the “trial,” lawyers on

each side present their arguments to the 9 justices (called oral arguments)

They each have about 45 minutes to make their case

Then the justices ask them a bunch of very hard questions to try to poke holes in their arguments

Where oral arguments are heard

Conference/Ruling After the oral arguments, the

justices discuss the case They vote who they think had

the better argument. Majority rules

A unanimous decision would be 9-0, but this is rare.

Usually the decision is more like 5-4

The Conference Room

Opinions A justice is chosen to write the

“opinion” of the court If some justices disagree with

the other justices they write a “dissenting opinion” (a protest)

If some justices agree with the majority, but for different reasons they write a “concurring opinion”

Timeline Because these papers

(the “opinions”) are sometimes 4o pages long and take months to write, decisions are usually announced several months after oral arguments

The term of the court goes from October to June