Blog Post #2: The U.S. Supreme Court

 Both Supreme Court videos were very helpful in helping me to further understand the nuances of the Supreme Court. I knew the most basic information regarding how the court functioned, like how the entire process begins through a petition so they're able to pass their judgment on whatever case is given to them to look over. There is a total of nine Supreme Court justices that look over the case, whether it's as a team or on their own near the start of the case, to come up with their own ideas and opinions over it.

The first video took an in-depth look at the court's starting grounds and explained some further information about the nine justices, like how they serve an average of sixteen years or longer. 

One of the most fascinating areas of this video was how they almost immediately jumped into the case of Marbury v. Madison. This was the first time in history that this newly established court struck down Congress as unconstitutional. This was present under John Marshall, a young lawyer from Virginia who was recently appointed Chief Justice by President John Adams, to step in and fill the role of not only Chief Justice but also to take on this specific case. This mainly served to establish judicial review through the court and show their ability to hold their ground to the people. 

"We must never forget it a constitution we are expounding.", this being a message that serves all people to understand the priorities and challenges that come with utilizing the Supreme Court to maintain the government. This leads to another interesting part of the video I forgot about the peculiar case of the infamous Dred Scott decision. This case resulted in the weakening of the court's authority overall, and especially with the people, mainly through Dred Scott claiming his freedom under an act of Congress twenty years later. 

After twenty years of waiting, Dred Scott, a slave from Missouri, tried to gain his freedom back after feeling wrongly imprisoned in slavery and attempted to bring the case to the Supreme Court, but got a ruling where the Supreme Court stated that Congress didn't have the power to ban slavery, furthermore that slaves wouldn't be allowed to be actual citizens. This ended up being one of the biggest thorns on the Supreme Court's side in the history of it due to the horrendous climax of the case as a whole. This self-inflicted wound provided immense backlash and a serious amount of time to do better as a Supreme Court and gain their full authority back. 

Another point of interest after Dred Scott's abysmal ruling was the way the Constitution started to evolve after this point, mainly through the Civil War's efforts and the amendments it brought. This is most specifically shown in the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship to all people born into the United States. This is most important after the Dred Scott decision, especially, which definitely helped to bring back some authority with the Supreme Court and had the Constitution become a living guide to resolving modern issues.

Part two of the video dove into looking through the intricacies of the courts when they take on cases. I genuinely had no clue about most of this, especially when I learned that the Justice on the majority side of the opinionated decision is required to immediately write their own opinion explaining the whole legality of the decision. The appointed Justice can also write their own complete opinion separate from the court's majority decision if they didn't agree, and the length of these pages written can become absurd. They can easily exceed eighty pages when on a split opinion but are sometimes only a few pages long when dealing with a unanimous decision.

After learning about the Supreme Court's intricacies, I now understand much about them that I originally had no clue about in the first place. Especially through how the Supreme Court's decision led to a loss in authority due to the unpopularity with the people, displaying how the people's opinion and acceptance of their rulings can make or break their power dynamic, giving more emphasis on the display of accountability with them. This is my biggest takeaway since I never thought that they'd be forced to adhere to the people's opinions of them, which blew my mind and is one of the most important things I've ever known about the government. The most surprising thing that I learned about the Supreme Court is that they receive over seven thousand cases per year but only accept one hundred of them. This baffles me but does make sense after thinking over it since the cases are usually big-ticket ones that have to have loads of time spent on each one. I think the thing I really took away was how much the Supreme Court is for the people, working to eliminate their issues while putting a hold on the government's benefits to hold them responsible in their own place of ruling so there isn't anything that goes awry.  

The Current Supreme Court Justices