supreme court

The Supreme Court is the most important court in the United States. It is the highest federal court, and it has the ultimate jurisdiction when it comes to state court cases. There are even some areas where it does have original jurisdiction.

The supreme court is the considered to have final ruling when it comes to federal constitutional law, and it may act within the on a case if it has jurisdiction.

The Constitution of the United States established the Supreme Court back in 1789, and the Supreme Court is actually the only court that was specfically established by the Constitution. The other courts were created through the Congress, and the Congress refers the title of Justice upon those who are supposed to hold it. The term ‘judge’ is used by the constitution, and these terms should be used appropriately.

The sixth member of the Supreme Court was confirmed in May 1790. This is interesting because every decision which it made by a majority was made by two thirds, since the votes were four to two.

The constitution does not actually specify the number of justices that should serve. The Judiciary Act calls for six, but as the size of the country grew, so too did the number of justices serving. By 1863 there were ten justices.

President Roosevelt attempted to expand the Supreme Court in the 1930s, proposing that there be an additional justice added for every incumbent justice that reached the age 70 and 6 months, who refused retirement. The proposal capped the number of justices at 15, and was supposedly to reduce the workload of older justices, however there were some who believed that Roosevelt had the ulterior motive of trying to bring in new justices that would support his New Deal, but there was resistance to this.