Supreme Court of the United States

Highest court in the national judiciary, possessing the authority to lay down the terms of its appellate jurisdiction. The offices of the Court are in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court was established by Article III of the U.S. Constitution, which describes the jurisdiction of the Court as follows: "The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made under their authority. . . ." The Court held its first session in New York City on Feb. 2, 1790.

The Court, which is in session from October to June, reaches decisions by majority vote, but any justice may issue a dissenting opinion. Enforcement of Court decisions is the responsibility of the executive department.

Jurisdiction

In addition to handling matters appropriate to the highest court of the land, including the interpretation of federal statutes, the Supreme Court operates principally as an appellate body . It reviews the decisions of the highest state courts and of the lower federal courts and may resolve ordinary private lawsuits where lower courts have disagreed. Decisions of lower federal courts are reviewed by appeal or by writ of certiorari. The Supreme Court can also issue writs of prohibition and all other writs that are necessary for its jurisdiction. Thus it has complete authority over all U.S. courts. In addition to its appellate powers, the Court has original jurisdiction in cases in which a public minister, ambassador, or consul is a party. The Court's powers extend to all cases in which the U.S. is a party and to cases between governments or citizens of different states.

Members

The Supreme Court consists of eight associate justices and the chief justice, all appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate. Members of the Court are appointed for life terms and can be removed only by resignation or impeachment. Until 1981 all justices of the Supreme Court in its 191-year history had been men. This policy was finally changed when President Ronald Reagan in 1981 appointed Judge Sandra Day O'Connor as the first woman Supreme Court Justice.

See also World Almanac: Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Chief Justices

Chief justices since the foundation of the office in 1789, with their terms of office, are John Jay (1789-95); John Rutledge (1795-96); Oliver Ellsworth (1796-99); John Marshall (1801-35); Roger Brooke Taney (1836-64); Salmon P. Chase (1864-73); Morrison R. Waite (1874-88); Melville W. Fuller (1888-1910); Edward D. White (1910-21); William Howard Taft (1921-30); Charles Evans Hughes (1930-41); Harlan Fiske Stone (1941-46); Frederick Moore Vinson (1946-53); Earl Warren (1953-69); Warren Earl Burger (1969-86); William H. Rehnquist (1986-2005); and John G. Roberts, Jr. (2005-).

Early history of the supreme court

Since its establishment the number of justices on the Supreme Court has varied from five to ten. The size of the Court, not specified by the Constitution, is determined by the U.S. Congress. The Judiciary Act of 1789 provided for five associate justices and one chief justice. This number was reduced to five in 1801 but was later increased to seven in 1807, nine in 1837, and ten in 1863. In 1869 the number was again restored to nine, which it has remained since that time. The changes in the number of the Court reflected the expansion of the U.S., specifically the burdensome responsibilities of the Court until 1869, to visit federal circuit courts around the country. By the Judiciary Act of 1869 circuit court judges were installed who relieved the Supreme Court justices of many duties. Additional legislation in 1891 and 1925 created more circuit court judges with final appellate jurisdiction and limited the kinds of cases that might be appealed to the Supreme Court.

Constitutional Interpretation

Throughout U.S. history the Supreme Court has been called upon to interpret the Constitution, broadly speaking, in one or two possible ways: (1) a "strict construction" of national law, which holds that the principal governmental authority remains with the states and that the federal government should have only secondary authority; and (2) a less strict, more federalist position, which asserts that the Constitution, through a broad interpretation of its phrasing, allows for implied, more expansive powers in the central government. The latter view was especially dominant from 1801 to 1835, the early years of the Court's history, when the American jurist John Marshall presided as fourth chief justice.

Decisions Under Marshall

In the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803), involving a contested appointment by the predecessor of Secretary of State James Madison, the Court held that an act of Congress in conflict with the Constitution was void and that it was the function of the Court to determine whether such conflict exists. This important, precedent-setting power of judicial review was not exercised again to hold an act of Congress unconstitutional until the historic Dred Scott Case of 1857; the power to invalidate congressional acts has been used sparingly ever since. On the other hand, the Court has frequently invalidated state legislation, exercising a power that has been very important in maintaining the federal system of government.

This system was strengthened through the decision given in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), which concerned whether or not Congress was authorized to charter a national bank. A strict or narrow interpretation of the Constitution would have held that Congress had no such power. The Supreme Court noted, however, that, in addition to the express powers of Congress, the Constitution provided for the adoption of "all laws which shall be necessary and proper, for carrying into execution the foregoing powers. . . ." Invoking the flexibility of this general statement, the Court concluded that the establishment of a banking corporation could be interpreted as a necessary and proper act. Chief Justice Marshall explained his conclusion in the following passage: "Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional." The McCulloch v. Maryland decision formed the basis of the doctrine of implied (federal) powers. The importance of this doctrine can be appreciated when it is recalled that, under a grant of power implied in the few words "to establish post offices and post roads," the U.S. postal system has developed .

Other important cases decided under Marshall include Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816), a reversal of a decision by a state court in an issue over land ownership; and Cohens v. Virginia (1821), a criminal case involving the selling of lottery tickets, both of which settled the power of the Supreme Court to review, and if necessary set aside, the proceedings of a state court when a federal right was asserted by the defeated party. The case Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), involving the control of steam navigation, affirmed the supreme power of the federal government over the navigable waters of the U.S., even where commerce was conducted on waters wholly within the domains of one state. This invocation of the "commerce clause" of the Constitution supported freedom of commerce between the states. The sanctity of business contracts was upheld in Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819; see Dartmouth College Case).

19th-Century Decisions

Justice Marshall was succeeded as chief justice in 1836 by former U.S. Attorney General Roger Brooke Taney, who viewed the power of the national government somewhat more narrowly than had his predecessor. Later, after the conclusion of the American Civil War, many of the Court's cases concerned the issue of states' rights. In Texas v. White (1868), for example, a case that involved the disposition of Civil War bonds used by Texas, which had left the Union, it was held that states in rebellion did not lose their existence or identity. During the income tax cases of 1895 the Court ruled that the constitutional provision requiring direct taxes to be apportioned among the states according to their populations rendered invalid a tax that was not so apportioned. This decision led to the ratification (1913) of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which provides that Congress may levy taxes on incomes without such apportionment among the several states.

From the New Deal to the Reagan Era

During the latter part of the 19th century, many decisions of the Court were accompanied by important dissenting opinions from Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He argued that the Court should recognize the right of government to enact laws for the promotion of social welfare. This right was severely tested in the 20th century during the first two terms of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

New Deal Legislation

In 1935 and 1936 much of the legislation vital to the president's New Deal program was held to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. This legislation included the National Recovery Act and the Farm Mortgage Moratorium Act (1935) as well as the Agricultural Adjustment Act (1936). For example, in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935), concerning alleged poultry-handling violations by slaughterhouse operators in New York City, the Court unanimously invalidated the National Recovery Act on the grounds that it improperly delegated legislative powers to the executive branch. Later, however, the court upheld such important New Deal legislation as, in 1937, the National Labor Relations Act, the Social Security Act , and, in 1941, the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The Warren Court

In the 1950s and '60s, concern for social issues was a distinguishing feature of the Court's decisions under Chief Justice Earl Warren. In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), the landmark case concerning racially separate school facilities in states, the Court held that state-prescribed public school segregation was a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This decision led, in subsequent cases, to the prohibition of segregation in jury service, marriage laws , and recreational facilities. In 1968 the Supreme Court ruled against racial discrimination in sales and rental of residential and other property. A year later in Alexander v. Holmes City Board of Education, the Court called for immediate desegregation of every school district, abandoning the "all deliberate speed" provision set forth in the 1954 Brown case . Another series of cases, beginning with Baker v. Carr (1962), which concerned electoral apportionment in Tennessee, led to the decision supporting the doctrine of "one person, one vote," that election districts must be equal in population. Within five years after the decisions in these cases, most states had reapportioned their districts to avoid population imbalances .

Such cases as Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) and Miranda v. Arizona (1966) considered the rights of defendants in criminal cases and initiated a debate on the rights of the individual in relation to the necessary powers of the government. The Miranda decision declared incriminating statements by a prisoner to be inadmissible as evidence when the prisoner had not been warned of his or her rights. In Harris v. New York (1971), however, the Court ruled that a prosecutor could use such evidence when a defendant chooses to testify. In Ginsberg v. New York (1968) and other cases involving publications of an erotic nature, the Court sought to provide a legal definition of obscenity and to determine the role of moral censorship in society. In another 1968 decision the Court upheld the right of the police to stop and search suspect persons for weapons.

The Burger Court

Warren was chief justice until June 23, 1969; he was succeeded by Warren Earl Burger, appointed by President Richard M. Nixon. Although the Supreme Court under Burger was more conservative than the Warren Court, it was often split between liberal and conservative attitudes.

In Williams v. Florida (1970), the Court ruled that juries of fewer than 12 were constitutional and satisfied the right to trial by jury in the 6th Amendment. In Welsh v. United States (1970) the Court found purely moral and ethical grounds valid for conscientious objection or exemption from the draft. In 1971, the Court limited such exemption by declaring that young men were not to be exempted if they objected only to one particular conflict as an "unjust war," as, for instance, the Vietnam War, and not to all wars. (See also Conscription; Selective Service.)

Among other decisions by the Court were rulings that divorce expenses for poor people be borne by the states, and that poor people cannot be jailed solely because they are unable to pay prescribed fines. In 1971 the Court ruled that the press has the right to report charges of criminal behavior made against public officials. One of the most widely discussed cases to come before the Court was that involving publication by the New York Times and other newspapers of the so-called Pentagon Papers. Upholding the principle of freedom of the press the Court authorized continued publication of the classified government documents. In 1972 the Court ruled that capital punishment, as was then practiced in the U.S., was "cruel and unusual punishment," and therefore it was unconstitutional. In 1976, after the federal government and 35 states had enacted new death-penalty laws, the Court ruled that capital punishment did not violate the Constitution, thus confirming its legitimacy for murder convictions. State laws outlawing abortion were set aside by the Court in Roe v. Wade (1973), which permitted abortions during the first three months of pregnancy and set standards for regulations after that time to safeguard the woman's health; in 1980, however, the Court, by a close vote, ruled that Congress or the states may refuse to pay for even "medically necessary" abortions sought by poor women. A 1974 decision effectively ended the busing of schoolchildren across school-district lines. Another 1974 decision, regarding the confidentiality of presidential papers, had a direct influence on the eventual resignation of President Nixon .

Several cases in the 1970s and '80s dealt with problems inherent in affirmative-action policies. In University of California Regents v. Bakke (1978), the Supreme Court required the admission to the medical school of a white applicant who had previously been rejected because of the school's minority-admissions policy. The Court ruled that Bakke was the victim of "reverse discrimination." One year later, however, the Court ruled in United Steelworkers of America v. Weber that private employers can give special preference to black workers to correct "manifest racial imbalance" in certain jobs.

Other cases brought before the Supreme Court in the 1980s involved abortion, discrimination, capital punishment, and privacy. In 1983 the Court found that state-approved restrictions on abortion, including parental consent for abortions performed on minors, were unconstitutional. In a 1986 move against discrimination, the Court ruled that prosecutors could not exclude blacks from serving on juries on account of race. That same year the Court also ruled that opponents of the death penalty may be barred from juries in capital cases even if this increases the likelihood of a conviction. In another 1986 decision, the Court upheld the right of states to outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults.

The Rehnquist Court

In June 1986 Chief Justice Burger announced his resignation from the Court. President Reagan appointed as his successor Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist, who had served on the Court since 1971. By 1989 the Court had a conservative majority on most issues. The Court upheld state restrictions on the use of public employees and facilities to perform abortions, made it harder for women and racial minorities to challenge discriminatory employment policies, and allowed executions in cases where a murderer was mentally retarded or as young as 16 years of age when the crime took place. In a case with important First Amendment implications, the Court nullified state and federal laws that made it a crime for protesters to desecrate the American flag.

The Court in the 1990s

In 1990 the Court upheld a patient's right to request termination of life-sustaining treatment and dealt a blow to political patronage by outlawing the use of political factors in hiring, promoting, or transferring most public employees. Several 1991 rulings eased restraints on police and prosecutors in criminal cases and limited the rights of convicts to challenge the constitutionality of convictions, sentences, or prison conditions. In 1992 the Court expanded the powers of the states to regulate abortion but affirmed the "central holding" of Roe v. Wade.

In a series of contentious and often closely divided decisions in the mid-1990s, the Supreme Court cast doubt on federally mandated affirmative action and congressional redistricting plans that classified persons on the basis of race . Invalidating a law that made it a federal crime to carry a gun near a school, the Court held, for the first time in nearly 60 years, that Congress had overstepped its constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce . In another 5-4 vote, the Court ruled that, without a federal constitutional amendment, states had no right to limit the number of terms a member of Congress may serve. In two closely watched bias cases during the 1995-96 term, the Court invalidated the men-only admissions policy of the state-supported Virginia Military Institute, and overturned a Colorado state constitutional amendment that made homosexuals ineligible for civil rights protection. Other decisions made it harder to limit campaign spending by political parties; extended the privilege of confidentiality in judicial proceedings to psychotherapists and other mental health professionals; and sustained a multibillion-dollar breach-of-contract claim against the federal government by several savings and loan institutions.

High-profile cases during the 1996-97 term resulted in a series of landmark rulings. The Court held that states had the right to ban physician-assisted suicide; invalidated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993) as an unconstitutional expansion of congressional authority; and struck down as a violation of "separate state sovereignty" a provision of the Brady gun-control law (1993) that obligated state officials to run background checks on prospective handgun buyers. In overturning the federal Communications Decency Act (1996), the justices for the first time extended free-speech protections (see Speech, Freedom of) to the Internet. In Clinton v. Jones the Court unanimously rejected President Bill Clinton's request to delay until he left office a sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by a former Arkansas state employee.

During its 1997-98 term, the Supreme Court clarified the law governing sexual harassment in the workplace, ruling, for example, that federal law covered cases in which the harasser and the victim were the same sex. The Court overturned the line-item veto as an unconstitutional abrogation of congressional authority; ruled that disabled state prisoners and all persons who test positive for the virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA; 1990); and resolved a long-standing sovereignty dispute over Ellis Island in favor of New Jersey. In decisions bearing on the investigation of President Clinton by an independent counsel, the Court ruled that the attorney-client privilege persists even after the client dies, and Chief Justice Rehnquist refused to halt grand jury questioning of Secret Service agents whom the Clinton administration had claimed were shielded from testifying by a "protective function privilege."

Notable in the 1998-99 term was a series of rulings that relied on the doctrine of "sovereign immunity" to shield states from suits brought under federal law; the cases reflected the justices' growing willingness to defer to states' rights in curbing the expansion of federal mandates. The Court continued to break new ground in the area of disabilities, holding that the ADA did not apply to people whose impairments may be corrected by eyeglasses, medications, or other readily available remedies. Another key decision barred the Clinton administration from employing statistical sampling methods in determining the official 2000 census count used for apportioning seats in the House of Representatives; the Court permitted the use of such methods for other purposes, such as the allocation of federal grants. During January and February 1999, Chief Justice Rehnquist presided over Clinton's impeachment trial in the Senate.

The Court revisited the abortion controversy during its 1999-2000 session, ruling by a narrow majority that state laws banning a late-term abortion procedure known as intact dilation and extraction (sometimes referred to as partial-birth abortion) were unconstitutional. In two decisions on church-state relations, the justices let stand a federal program that provided parochial schools with computers and other equipment, but barred organized, student-led prayer before public high school athletic events. The Court reaffirmed its landmark Miranda decision, upheld the constitutionality of political campaign contribution limits, ruled that the federal Food and Drug Administration had no statutory authority to regulate tobacco products, and held that First Amendment provisions governing freedom of association gave the Boy Scouts the constitutional right to exclude homosexuals .

The 2000 Election and After

In December 2000, a deeply divided Court made an unprecedented foray into the presidential election process when it held, in Bush v. Gore, that a partial recount of the Florida vote ordered by the state supreme court was unconstitutional; the ruling left standing a certified result giving Republican George W. Bush a slim lead in Florida's popular vote, and thus enough electoral votes to win the presidency. Other important rulings during the 2000-01 term dealt a setback to the movement to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes; affirmed the right of after-school religious groups to meet on elementary school grounds; barred police use, absent a warrant, of high-technology devices to conduct surveillance on a private home; upheld limits on certain types of campaign spending by political parties; restricted the ability of states and localities to regulate tobacco advertising; and affirmed the due-process rights of immigrants who commit crimes.

For the first time since the Supreme Court moved into its own building near the Capitol in 1935, the justices were forced to conduct business in temporary quarters for a few weeks, after anthrax spores were found in the Court's mail-sorting facilities in October 2001. Two important decisions during the 2001-02 term significantly narrowed the circumstances under which the death penalty could be imposed; the justices barred the execution of mentally retarded offenders and held that only a jury, and not a judge, could make the findings of fact that might lead to a sentence of capital punishment. The Court continued to take an expansive view of the First Amendment, striking down a broadly worded federal statute that had banned computer-generated (or "virtual") images of underage sexual activity as obscene. In a major ruling the justices upheld the constitutionality of a school voucher program in Cleveland, Ohio, that allowed the use of public funds to pay school tuition in nonpublic schools, most of which were religious. The justices also expanded the rights of school officials to conduct random drug tests of students; ruled that property owners were not entitled to compensation when government regulators temporarily impeded their right to build on their lands; and further limited the scope of the ADA.

The Supreme Court broke new ground in 2003 when it ruled that a Texas statute banning "deviate sexual intercourse" between two persons of the same sex was unconstitutional. The majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, declared for the first time that homosexuals were "entitled to respect for their private lives" and that the state had no right to "control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime." In another landmark ruling, involving two schools of the University of Michigan, the Court upheld the broad goal of affirmative action in university admissions, and in doing so clarified the role of race in higher-education admissions decisions for the first time since the 1978 Bakke case. In its 2003 holding, the Court allowed the use of racial preferences in the interest of diversity, although, as in the Bakke case twenty-five years earlier, it ruled out "mechanical" ways of achieving diversity, in this case by invalidating one of the university's admission programs that used a point system. As in its previous term, the Court took a rigorous look at capital punishment, holding, for example, that incompetence by defense counsel in a death penalty case was grounds for overturning the sentence. In other important criminal law cases during the 2002-03 term, the justices upheld so-called "Megan's laws," which authorize states to use online registries or other means to inform communities about the presence of particular sexual predators in their midst, and approved a California "three-strikes" statute imposing lengthy prison terms on repeat offenders even when the final conviction was for a relatively minor offense; however, the Court invalidated a California law that had revived the prosecution of certain crimes, such as child molestation, for which the statute of limitations had already expired. Other major decisions limited punitive damages in liability cases and upheld a federal law requiring public libraries to install software designed to block the downloading of pornographic images from the Internet.

The Court returned to electoral matters in September 2003, meeting in a special session to hear oral arguments on a series of challenges to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002). The Court's decision in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, handed down in December, upheld the core provisions of the act, including a ban on "soft money" contributions to national political parties and limitations on certain kinds of political advertising. Writing for a 5-4 majority, Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor held that in passing the campaign finance reform measure, Congress had a legitimate interest in confronting "the danger that officeholders will decide issues not on the merits or the desires of their constituencies, but according to the wishes of those who have made large financial contributions valued by the officeholder."

A major thrust of the Rehnquist court--the defense of states' rights against federal encroachment--appeared to lose momentum during Rehnquist's last two terms as chief justice. Over Rehnquist's dissent, the Court held that states may be sued under the federal ADA when they fail to make courthouses accessible to the disabled, and that Congress's power to ban the cultivation, possession, and use of marijuana trumps efforts by California and other states to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. In other major decisions handed down during the 2003-04 and 2004-05 terms, the Court held that the Bush administration could not indefinitely detain those whom it classified as "enemy combatants" but instead must allow them to seek a review of their status before a federal judge or some other impartial authority; ruled that states which subsidized scholarships for secular studies were not thereby required to provide financial aid to students preparing for the ministry; and declared that a locality may exercise its right of eminent domain to achieve a broadly defined "public purpose" such as an economic revitalization plan implemented by private developers.

The Court, whose membership had remained unchanged since 1994, experienced significant upheavals at the close of the 2004-05 term. In July, Justice O'Connor announced that she would step down as soon as a new associate justice could be confirmed. Initially nominated as a replacement for O'Connor, John G. Roberts, Jr., was renominated for the position of chief justice when Rehnquist died in September. The Senate confirmed Roberts at the end of the month, and he took his seat on the Court as the 2005-06 term began. White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers (1945-) was the next choice to fill the O'Connor seat, but she withdrew her nomination after her qualifications were questioned by conservative commentators. In late October, President George W. Bush nominated his third choice to replace O'Connor: Samuel A. Alito, Jr., an appellate court judge. He was confirmed by the Senate at the end of January 2006.

The Roberts Court

The Court, whose membership had remained unchanged since 1994, experienced significant upheavals at the close of the 2004-05 term. In July, Justice O'Connor announced that she would step down as soon as a new associate justice could be confirmed. Initially nominated as a replacement for O'Connor, John G. Roberts, Jr., was renominated for the position of chief justice when Rehnquist died in September. The Senate confirmed Roberts at the end of the month, and he took his seat on the Court as the 2005-06 term began. White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers (1945-) was the next choice to fill the O'Connor seat, but she withdrew her nomination after her qualifications were questioned by conservative commentators. In late October, President George W. Bush nominated a third choice to replace O'Connor: Samuel A. Alito, Jr., an appellate court judge. He was confirmed by the Senate at the end of January 2006. Roberts was regarded as a conservative, like Rehnquist whom he replaced; Alito was also considered a conservative, but O'Connor, whom he replaced, had proven to be more of a moderate, not closely aligned with either the conservative or the liberal bloc on the Court.

With O'Connor gone, Justice Kennedy emerged as a central "swing" figure during the latter part of the 2005-06 term, straddling a Court considered evenly balanced between conservative and liberal blocs. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a landmark case that defined the limits of the president's wartime powers, the Court held that the Bush administration violated both U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and its plan to try them before special military commissions; the 5-3 decision, from which the chief justice recused himself, overturned a federal appellate court ruling in which Roberts had participated. In an important decision on voting rights, the justices found nothing inherently improper in a Texas redistricting plan that had greatly benefited Republicans in the 2004 congressional elections; a majority held, however, that the redrawn electoral map violated the Voting Rights Act by carving up a Laredo district that previously had a Hispanic majority. Other major rulings upheld the authority of the federal government under the Clean Water Act to protect most wetlands; turned back a challenge by the Bush administration to a 1997 Oregon law allowing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients; validated a law requiring federally funded universities to grant military recruiters the same access to students that other employers receive; and held that public employees who speak out while performing their assigned duties ("whistle blowers") are not shielded by the First Amendment from retalition action by their supervisors.

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