What Exactly is the Supreme Court?

So, what exactly is the supreme court of the United States? If you ask anyone, and I mean really anyone on the side of the street, they will probably know a generic answer learned from high school U.S. history. However, very rarely will you catch people that know a lot and truly appreciate the actions the supreme court has on our country. The supreme court is a group of judges, usually about nine individuals, that take cases from lower levels of the law around the country and unanimously make decisions for each specific case. 

The supreme court has not always been very high up in power in our United States government though. 200 years ago (specifically in 1801,) when the government moved to Washington, the supreme court was given temporary quarters to meet in the unfinished capitol. In the basement of the unfinished capitol. Yikes. Soon after, John Marshall was elected the first supreme court chief justice, and power began to rise. Some of the most famous cases to go through the supreme court include Marbury vs. Madison in 1803, and the Dred Scott case, heavily discussing the abolishment of slavery. After that case, the Civil War was started, and the 14^th amendment was created, where slavery was then abolished officially. 

Usually, the supreme court receives about 7,000 cases a year asking to reconsider the decision that has been made in the lower government. Only about 100 of those cases actually go to court during the span of a year. Each week, each supreme court justice receives multiple cases to go through and decide personally if they are worth taking to court. Once a case is taken, the nine supreme court justice leaders sit in front of both lawyers of each side, as well as the defendant, where they get to speak for 30 minutes defending their case. After the court meeting, all justices conference together to decide the final say for each case. Once decided, one justice writes a written opinion to send out to the members of that case explaining why and how the decision was made lawfully.

Decisions on every case that go through the supreme court are decided in the end of June every year, where media personnel then come and write new stories, reports, and live broadcasts of the decisions the court made.

The supreme court at the end of the day is quite complex, however upholds a very important role in our nation’s politics. If it wasn’t for the justices and the whole idea of having a supreme court, people in our nation wouldn’t get a second chance at defending themselves in a lawsuit, a wrongful assumption, or anything in the court of law. Overall, these judges want to help us citizens and give us a fair chance at our freedom to be a U.S. citizen. They are people and they are people of this country; just like we are.