Supreme Court of the United States

highest court, United States


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United States
United States: The judicial branch

…branch is headed by the Supreme Court of the United States, which interprets the Constitution and federal legislation. The Supreme Court consists of nine justices (including a chief justice) appointed to life terms by the president with the consent of the Senate. It has appellate jurisdiction over the lower federal…

Scope and jurisdiction

The Supreme Court was created by the Constitutional Convention of 1787 as the head of a federal court system, though it was not formally established until Congress passed the Judiciary Act in 1789. Although the Constitution outlined the powers, structure, and functions of the legislative and executive branches of government in some detail, it did not do the same for the judicial branch, leaving much of that responsibility to Congress and stipulating only that judicial power be “vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” As the country’s court of last resort, the Supreme Court is an appellate body, vested with the authority to act in cases arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States; in controversies to which the United States is a party; in disputes between states or between citizens of different states; and in cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. In suits affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls and in cases in which states are a party, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction—i.e., it serves as a trial court. Relatively few cases reach the court through its original jurisdiction, however; instead, the vast majority of the court’s business and nearly all of its most influential decisions derive from its appellate jurisdiction.

Size, membership, and organization

The organization of the federal judicial system, including the size of the Supreme Court, is established by Congress. From 1789 to 1807 the court comprised six justices. In 1807 a seventh justice was added, followed by an eighth and a ninth in 1837 and a tenth in 1863. The size of the court has sometimes been subject to political manipulation; for example, in 1866 Congress provided for the gradual reduction (through attrition) of the court to seven justices to ensure that President Andrew Johnson, whom the House of Representatives later impeached and the Senate only narrowly acquitted, could not appoint a new justice. The number of justices reached eight before Congress, after Johnson had left office, adopted new legislation (1869) setting the number at nine, where it has remained ever since. In the 1930s President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to consider legislation (which it subsequently rejected) that would have allowed the president to appoint an additional justice for each member of the court aged 70 years or older who refused to retire.

According to the Constitution, appointments to the Supreme Court and to the lower federal courts are made by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, though presidents have rarely consulted the Senate before making a nomination. The Senate Judiciary Committee ordinarily conducts hearings on nominations to the Supreme Court, and a simple majority of the full Senate is required for confirmation. When the position of chief justice is vacant, the president may appoint a chief justice from outside the court or elevate an associate justice to the position. In either case a simple majority of the Senate must approve the appointment. Members of the Supreme Court are appointed for life terms, though they may be expelled if they are impeached by the House of Representatives and convicted in the Senate. Only one justice has been impeached, Samuel Chase, who was acquitted in 1805. In 1969 Abe Fortas resigned under threat of impeachment for alleged financial improprieties unrelated to his duties on the court.

The federal judicial system originally comprised only trial courts of original jurisdiction and the Supreme Court. As the country grew in size, and in the absence of intermediate appellate courts, the volume of cases awaiting review increased, and fidelity to Supreme Court precedents varied significantly among the lower courts. To remedy this problem, Congress passed the Circuit Court of Appeals Act (1891), which established nine intermediate courts with final authority over appeals from federal district courts, except when the case in question was of exceptional public importance. The Judiciary Act of 1925 (popularly known as the Judges’ Bill), which was sponsored by the court itself, carried the reforms farther, greatly limiting obligatory jurisdiction (which required the Supreme Court to review a case) and expanding the classes of cases that the court could accept at its own discretion through the issue of a writ of certiorari. Further changes were enacted in 1988, when Congress passed legislation that required the Supreme Court to hear appeals of cases involving legislative reapportionment and federal civil rights and antitrust laws. Currently, there are 12 geographic judicial circuits and a court of appeals for the federal circuit, located in Washington, D.C. Roughly 98 percent of federal cases end with a decision by one of the lower appellate courts.

Procedures and power

The Supreme Court, which now enjoys almost exclusive discretion in determining its caseload, hears about 100 cases per term, which begins by statute (set in 1917) on the first Monday in October and typically ends in late June (though from 1873 to 1917 the court began its term on the second Monday in October). Each year the court receives some 7,000 certiorari requests. The number of these requests has increased some fivefold since World War II—a reflection of the country’s population growth, a progressively more litigious legal culture, and a surge in the demands placed by citizens on government. As the number of certiorari requests has increased, the number of cases decided by the Supreme Court has declined since the 1950s and ’60s, when civil rights cases dominanted the docket, as the justices have opted to hear fewer cases per salient issue area.

All certiorari requests are circulated among the justices. The chief justice leads the court in developing a “discuss list” of potential cases, though the associate justices may request that additional cases be placed on the list. By the so-called “Rule of Four,” apparently developed in the late 19th century, the decision to grant certiorari requires the assent of at least four justices. Once the decision to hear a case has been made, lower-court records and briefs are delivered to the court and oral arguments are scheduled. Interested third parties also may submit their opinions to the court by filing an amicus curiae (Latin: “friend of the court”) brief. With rare exceptions the petitioners and respondents are each allotted 30 minutes of time to present their arguments to the court. The justices hear neither witnesses nor evidence. Each side in the case attempts to persuade the justices that the Constitution should be interpreted in a manner that supports its point of view.

The decision-making process involves two major judgments. First, in a vote that is usually kept secret, the justices decide the merits of the case; then they issue the official written decision of the court. The first judgment determines who will write the official decision. By tradition, if the chief justice is in the majority, he selects which justice (including himself) will author the court’s verdict. If he is in the minority, the longest-serving member of the majority makes the decision-writing appointment. Since the era of John Marshall, chief justice from 1801 to 1835, it has been common practice for the court to issue formal opinions to justify its decisions, though the Constitution does not require it to do so. Drafts of all opinions circulate among the justices, and all justices may concur with or dissent from any decision, in full or in part. The final decision effectively represents the supreme law of the land and is expected to be used as controlling constitutional doctrine by lower courts.

The Supreme Court exercises the power of judicial review, whereby it can declare acts of Congress or the state legislatures unconstitutional. Executive, administrative, and judicial actions also are subject to review by the court. The doctrine of judicial review is not mentioned explicitly in the Constitution; instead, it was articulated by Marshall in Marbury v. Madison (1803), in which the court struck down part of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Although since the late 19th century the vast majority of legal scholars have accepted judicial review as a proper power of the Supreme Court, critics have charged that the framers did not intend for the court to exercise such power, which allows it to act in effect as a legislative body.

Historical trends

Any assessment of the unifying forces in American society must ascribe a significant role to the Supreme Court. In its institutional infancy, the court necessarily addressed structural and functional questions involving inter alia federalism, express and implied powers, checks and balances, and the separation of powers. During the mid- to late 19th century, the court employed the Constitution’s commerce clause (Article I Section 8) to nullify state laws of taxation or regulation that discriminated against or unduly burdened interstate commerce. The clause subsequently was used to uphold the power of Congress to regulate vast sectors of the economy.

Whereas the commerce clause has been the chief doctrinal source of power over the economy, the due-process clause of the Fifth Amendment and the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment have been the principal sources of protection of persons and corporations against arbitrary or repressive acts of government. These clauses were used at first to protect property rights, but in the 1920s they began to be applied to civil liberties, particularly in the extension of Bill of Rights guarantees to state actions. By the middle of the century, the equal-protection clause, which had been designed to protect the rights of emancipated slaves, was being used to strike down laws that were racially discriminatory, and all rights guaranteed by the First Amendment had been incorporated (and thusly made applicable to the states) through the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. By the end of the 20th century, the court found itself addressing issues that had previously been considered off-limits according to the political question doctrine, which it had invoked to avoid entering into questions that it thought were best decided by legislatures (e.g., prison administration, the operation of districting systems, and even, arguably, the 2000 presidential election). While broadening the concept of justiciable disputes, the court also sought to limit congressional power to control the affairs of the states. In a variety of cases concerning issues such as state immunity from lawsuits, commerce, and criminal procedure, a states’ rights approach was adopted by the court’s conservative majority.

The opinions of the Supreme Court, including the dissenting opinions of individual justices, often have been considered epitomes of legal reasoning. Through these opinions, the court serves to clarify, refine, and test the philosophical ideals written into the Constitution and to translate them into working principles for a federal union under law. Beyond its specific contributions, this symbolic and pragmatic function may be regarded as the most significant role of the court.

Brian P. Smentkowski

U.S. Supreme Court justices

The table provides a list of U.S. Supreme Court justices.

U.S. Supreme Court justices
*The date the justice took the judicial oath is here used as the beginning date of service, for until that oath is taken the justice is not vested with the prerogatives of the office. Justices, however, receive their commissions ("letters patent") before taking their oaths—in some instances, in the preceding year.
**John Rutledge was acting chief justice; the U.S. Senate refused to confirm him.
(chief justices in italics)
term of service* appointed by president
John Jay 1789–95 Washington
James Wilson 1789–98 Washington
John Rutledge 1790–91 Washington
William Cushing 1790–1810 Washington
John Blair 1790–96 Washington
James Iredell 1790–99 Washington
Thomas Johnson 1792–93 Washington
William Paterson 1793–1806 Washington
John Rutledge** 1795 Washington
Samuel Chase 1796–1811 Washington
Oliver Ellsworth 1796–1800 Washington
Bushrod Washington 1799–1829 J. Adams
Alfred Moore 1800–04 J. Adams
John Marshall 1801–35 J. Adams
William Johnson 1804–34 Jefferson
Henry Brockholst Livingston 1807–23 Jefferson
Thomas Todd 1807–26 Jefferson
Gabriel Duvall 1811–35 Madison
Joseph Story 1812–45 Madison
Smith Thompson 1823–43 Monroe
Robert Trimble 1826–28 J.Q. Adams
John McLean 1830–61 Jackson
Henry Baldwin 1830–44 Jackson
James M. Wayne 1835–67 Jackson
Roger Brooke Taney 1836–64 Jackson
Philip P. Barbour 1836–41 Jackson
John Catron 1837–65 Van Buren
John McKinley 1838–52 Van Buren
Peter V. Daniel 1842–60 Van Buren
Samuel Nelson 1845–72 Tyler
Levi Woodbury 1845–51 Polk
Robert C. Grier 1846–70 Polk
Benjamin R. Curtis 1851–57 Fillmore
John Archibald Campbell 1853–61 Pierce
Nathan Clifford 1858–81 Buchanan
Noah H. Swayne 1862–81 Lincoln
Samuel Freeman Miller 1862–90 Lincoln
David Davis 1862–77 Lincoln
Stephen Johnson Field 1863–97 Lincoln
Salmon P. Chase 1864–73 Lincoln
William Strong 1870–80 Grant
Joseph P. Bradley 1870–92 Grant
Ward Hunt 1873–82 Grant
Morrison Remick Waite 1874–88 Grant
John Marshall Harlan 1877–1911 Hayes
William B. Woods 1881–87 Hayes
Stanley Matthews 1881–89 Garfield
Horace Gray 1882–1902 Arthur
Samuel Blatchford 1882–93 Arthur
Lucius Q.C. Lamar 1888–93 Cleveland
Melville Weston Fuller 1888–1910 Cleveland
David J. Brewer 1890–1910 B. Harrison
Henry B. Brown 1891–1906 B. Harrison
George Shiras, Jr. 1892–1903 B. Harrison
Howell E. Jackson 1893–95 B. Harrison
Edward Douglass White 1894–1910 Cleveland
Rufus Wheeler Peckham 1896–1909 Cleveland
Joseph McKenna 1898–1925 McKinley
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 1902–32 T. Roosevelt
William R. Day 1903–22 T. Roosevelt
William H. Moody 1906–10 T. Roosevelt
Horace H. Lurton 1910–14 Taft
Charles Evans Hughes 1910–16 Taft
Willis Van Devanter 1911–37 Taft
Joseph R. Lamar 1911–16 Taft
Edward Douglass White 1910–21 Taft
Mahlon Pitney 1912–22 Taft
James C. McReynolds 1914–41 Wilson
Louis Brandeis 1916–39 Wilson
John H. Clarke 1916–22 Wilson
William Howard Taft 1921–30 Harding
George Sutherland 1922–38 Harding
Pierce Butler 1923–39 Harding
Edward T. Sanford 1923–30 Harding
Harlan Fiske Stone 1925–41 Coolidge
Charles Evans Hughes 1930–41 Hoover
Owen Roberts 1930–45 Hoover
Benjamin Nathan Cardozo 1932–38 Hoover
Hugo L. Black 1937–71 F. Roosevelt
Stanley F. Reed 1938–57 F. Roosevelt
Felix Frankfurter 1939–62 F. Roosevelt
William O. Douglas 1939–75 F. Roosevelt
Frank Murphy 1940–49 F. Roosevelt
Harlan Fiske Stone 1941–46 F. Roosevelt
James F. Byrnes 1941–42 F. Roosevelt
Robert H. Jackson 1941–54 F. Roosevelt
Wiley B. Rutledge 1943–49 F. Roosevelt
Harold H. Burton 1945–58 Truman
Fred M. Vinson 1946–53 Truman
Tom C. Clark 1949–67 Truman
Sherman Minton 1949–56 Truman
Earl Warren 1953–69 Eisenhower
John Marshall Harlan 1955–71 Eisenhower
William J. Brennan, Jr. 1956–90 Eisenhower
Charles E. Whittaker 1957–62 Eisenhower
Potter Stewart 1958–81 Eisenhower
Byron R. White 1962–93 Kennedy
Arthur J. Goldberg 1962–65 Kennedy
Abe Fortas 1965–69 L. Johnson
Thurgood Marshall 1967–91 L. Johnson
Warren E. Burger 1969–86 Nixon
Harry A. Blackmun 1970–94 Nixon
Lewis F. Powell, Jr. 1972–87 Nixon
William H. Rehnquist 1972–86 Nixon
John Paul Stevens 1975–2010 Ford
Sandra Day O'Connor 1981–2006 Reagan
William H. Rehnquist 1986–2005 Reagan
Antonin Scalia 1986–2016 Reagan
Anthony M. Kennedy 1988– Reagan
David H. Souter 1990–2009 G.H.W. Bush
Clarence Thomas 1991– G.H.W. Bush
Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1993– Clinton
Stephen G. Breyer 1994– Clinton
John G. Roberts, Jr. 2005– G.W. Bush
Samuel A. Alito 2006– G.W. Bush
Sonia Sotomayor 2009– Obama
Elena Kagan 2010– Obama
Neil Gorsuch 2017– Trump

Select decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court

The table provides a list of select decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Select decisions of the United States Supreme Court
decision year description
Chisholm v. Georgia 1793 Found in favour of a citizen of South Carolina in his suit against the state of Georgia, which had refused to appear on the grounds that the Supreme Court lacked authority to hear cases in which a state was a defendant, later invalidated by the Eleventh Amendment, which removed such cases from federal jurisdiction.
Marbury v. Madison 1803 Asserted the Supreme Court's power of judicial review, by which it could invalidate laws passed by Congress by declaring them unconstitutional.
McCulloch v. Maryland 1819 Established that Congress possesses all "implied powers" appropriate to the exercise of the powers expressly granted to it in the U.S. Constitution.
Cohens v. Virginia 1821 Reaffirmed the Supreme Court's right under the Judiciary Act (1789) to review the decisions of state supreme courts on questions related to the U.S. Constitution or federal law.
Gibbons v. Ogden 1824 Held that, by the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce could not be infringed by contradictory state enactments.
Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sandford 1857 Declared that African Americans were not entitled to the rights of U.S. citizenship and struck down the Missouri Compromise, which had banned slavery in the western U.S. territories.
Ex parte Merryman 1861 Declared that only Congress, not the president, has the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.
Ex parte Milligan 1866 Established that U.S. civilians may not be tried in military courts except when civilian courts are not functioning.
Texas v. White 1869 Held that by joining the Confederacy the state of Texas had not surrendered its membership in the United States, which is an "indestructible union" from which no state may secede.
Slaughterhouse Cases 1873 Held that the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protected the civil rights conferred by U.S. citizenship but not the property rights traditionally controlled by the states.
Munn v. Illinois 1877 Established the power of state governments to regulate private industries.
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company 1895 Declared the federal income tax to be unconstitutional, later invalidated by passage of the Sixteenth Amendment.
United States v. E.C. Knight Company 1895 Held that the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) could not be applied to monopolies in manufacturing because such monopolies only indirectly affected interstate commerce, which Congress is empowered to regulate by the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Plessy v. Ferguson 1896 Established the doctrine of "separate but equal," which held that racial segregation of African Americans and whites in public facilities did not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as long as the facilities for the two groups were reasonably equal.
Lochner v. New York 1905 Struck down a New York City law limiting bakery workers to 10 hours of labour a day, holding that it violated a right to freedom of contract guaranteed by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Adair v. United States 1908 Struck down a federal law prohibiting railroads from requiring their workers not to join labour unions, thereby upholding the constitutionality of yellow-dog contracts.
Muller v. State of Oregon 1908 Upheld the constitutionality of an Oregon law that prohibited women from working more than 10 hours a day on the grounds that it provided health protections necessary to women but not to men.
Hammer v. Dagenhart 1918 Struck down a federal law regulating child labour as an unconstitutional encroachment on state powers to determine local labour conditions.
Schenck v. United States 1919 Declared that speech that poses a "clear and present danger" to society is not protected by the First Amendment.
Gitlow v. New York 1925 Held that the First Amendment's prohibition of laws abridging freedom of speech applied to state governments.
Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States 1935 Invalidated Section III of the National Industrial Relations Act (1933) as an unconstitutional delegation of legislative powers to the president.
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette 1943 Found that laws requiring public school students to salute the U.S. flag violated the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
Korematsu v. United States 1944 Upheld the conviction of a Nisei (second-generation Japanese) American citizen for failing to obey a military order to relocate to an internment camp for people of Japanese ancestry.
Dennis v. United States 1951 Upheld the constitutionality of the Smith Act (1940), which prohibited advocating the violent overthrow of the government.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 1954 Declared racial segregation in public schools to be an inherent violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, thereby striking down the "separate but equal" doctrine advanced by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
Mapp v. Ohio 1961 Ruled that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment is inadmissible in state courts.
Baker v. Carr 1962 Held that state legislative apportionment was justiciable in federal courts and effectively established the principle of "one person, one vote" for assessing the constitutionality of state apportionment plans.
Engel v. Vitale 1962 Declared that voluntary prayer in public schools was an unconstitutional establishment of religion under the First Amendment.
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States 1964 Upheld the constitutionality of Title II of the Civil Rights Act (1964), which prohibited segregation or discrimination in places of public accommodation.
Griswold v. State of Connecticut 1965 Declared that a Connecticut state law prohibiting the use of contraceptives violated a right of marital privacy implied by various specific guarantees within the Bill of Rights.
Miranda v. Arizona 1966 Required police to issue warnings (the Miranda warnings) to arrested persons to safeguard their privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment.
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education 1971 Upheld the constitutionality of busing programs to achieve racial integration in public schools.
Roe v. Wade 1973 Established the legality of abortion on the basis of the court's recognition of a constitutional right of privacy implicit in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke 1978 Prohibited the use of strict racial quotas in the admissions policies of institutions of higher education but allowed that race could be considered as a factor in admissions decisions.
Bowers v. Hardwick 1986 Upheld a Georgia state law prohibiting sodomy.
Texas v. Johnson 1989 Held that a law prohibiting the desecration of the U.S. flag violated the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey 1992 Established that laws that place an "undue burden" on a woman seeking an abortion before her fetus is viable are unconstitutional.
Bush v. Gore 2000 Halted a manual recount of presidential ballots in Florida, effectively awarding an electoral-college victory and the presidency to Republican candidate George W. Bush.
Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition 2002 Struck down as an infringement of freedom of speech a law prohibiting images that appeared to be, or that conveyed the impression of being, of minors engaged in sexual activity.
Bollinger decisions 2003 Held that consideration of race in the admissions decisions of institutions of higher education is permissible only if it is "narrowly tailored" to serve a compelling state interest.
Rasul v. Bush 2004 Declared that foreign nationals held at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp on the island of Cuba were entitled to file habeas corpus petitions in federal courts.
Boumediene v. Bush 2008 Struck down the Military Commissions Act (2006), which had prohibited foreign nationals held by the United States as "enemy combatants" from challenging their detentions in federal courts.
District of Columbia v. Heller 2008 Held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess firearms independent of service in a state militia and to use firearms for traditionally lawful purposes, including self-defense within the home.
Ricci v. DeStefano 2009 Found that a New Haven, Conn., fire department violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964) by discarding the results of a promotion test on which whites performed better than African Americans.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 2010 Struck down a provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act (1971) that prohibited corporate and union expenditures in connection with political elections and a provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002) that banned direct corporate or union funding of "electioneering communications."
United States v. Stevens 2010 Held that a federal law banning the creation, sale, or possession of depictions of animal cruelty violated the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.
McDonald v. City of Chicago 2010 Extended District of Columbia v. Heller in holding that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments as well as to the federal government.
Affordable Care Act cases 2012 Upheld most provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010), finding that the law's requirement that almost all Americans obtain health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty is constitutional under Congress's taxing power.
Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin 2013 Vacated and remanded a lower court's decision upholding the partly race-based admissions policy of the University of Texas at Austin, which had been modeled on a policy approved by the court in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003); see Bollinger decisions .
Hollingsworth v. Perry 2013 Held that supporters of a California referendum defining marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman did not have standing to appeal a lower court's ruling that the referendum was unconstitutional.
Shelby County v. Holder 2013 Struck down a formula used in the Voting Rights Act (1965) to determine which jurisdictions were required under the act to seek federal approval of changes in their voting laws.
United States v. Windsor 2013 Declared unconstitutional a provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (1996) that had defined marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman.

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