Blog #2: The Supreme Court

 Before learning about The Supreme Court I never new how involved they are in the United States. Now that I have learned more about it I find what they do very interesting. 

In 1789, George Washington the President at this time signed the Supreme Court into law. He organized the court so that there would be six justices who would serve on the court until death or retirement. The justices are nominated by the President and are confirmed or denied by the U.S. Senate. 

The first six justices on Supreme Court were Chief of Justice John Jay and Associate Justices John Rutledge, William Cushing, John Blair, Robert Harrison and James Wilson. The Chief Justice being John Jay had to be the one to overlook the Supreme Court and set agendas for the justices weekly meetings. 

The Supreme Court is the most powerful judicial body on earth. Somethings I didn't know about the Supreme Court before was that they receive more than a hundred new court cases a week and around 7,000 a year, but they only end up accepting about a 100 a year. Another thing I never new was that the Supreme Court hears cases in public and lawyers on each side have 30 minutes to make their arguments before the court.  I think that is very interesting that you get to see the Supreme Court in public doing their work deciding on cases. 

The most import take-away from learning about the Supreme Court is that they do put a lot of time and work into shaping the United states into what it is today. Some of  these examples are, Roe v. Wade which is women having the right to abortion during the first two trimesters. This was later overturned in 2022. The second example is U.S. v. Nixon which found that the President cannot use his or her power to withhold evidence in criminal trials. These cases that the Supreme Court go threw along with all the others have had lasting impacts on the nation and will continue to do so. 

The Supreme Court has so much say in our country that I never knew about. I always looked at the United States as just the President being the main power but in reality it is the Supreme Court who has a major say on things that have shaped our world today.