Supreme Court Work in the United States

Supreme Court of the United States: The Work of the Court

Introduction to Supreme Court Work

The Supreme Court hears only a tiny fraction of the cases that come before it. When the Court declines to hear a case, the decision of the lower court stands as the final word on the case. Each year the Court receives thousands of petitions to hear cases, but it usually decides to consider only a few. In 1995, for example, the Court had 7,565 cases on its docket, and the justices heard oral arguments in just 90 and issued signed opinions-written explanations of its decisions-in only 75. Ten years earlier the Court’s docket had been much smaller, consisting of 5,185 cases, although it issued signed opinions in 151 cases.

The growth in petitions has many causes: a larger population, a more complex economy, and the proliferation of business and other relationships. Adding to the Court’s workload is a steady growth in congressional and state legislation that requires judicial interpretation, and an increasing number of constitutional and other issues that can be reviewed in the federal courts.

By law the Court’s term begins the first Monday in October and usually runs through the end of June, after disposing of all cases that have been argued during the term. On rare occasions, when a critical case has arisen, the Court has heard arguments and issued decisions in the summer; for example, in 1974 the Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, the Watergate tapes case, on July 24.

The Court does not meet continuously in formal sessions during its nine-month term. Instead, the Court divides its time into four separate but related activities. First, some time is allocated to reading through the thousands of petitions for review of cases that come annually to the Court. This time is not formally assigned but is available during the summer and during those periods when the Court is not sitting to hear cases. Second, the Court allocates blocks of time for oral arguments-the live discussion in which lawyers for both sides present their clients’ positions to the justices. From October through April, the justices meet in blocks of two consecutive weeks on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays to hear oral arguments. These public sessions run from 10 am to 3 pm, with a one-hour lunch recess, giving the Court time to hear from lawyers in four cases each day.

During the weeks of oral arguments the Court sets aside its third allotment of time, for private discussions of how each justice will vote on the cases they have just heard. Time is also allowed for the justices to discuss which additional cases to hear. These private discussions are usually held on Wednesday afternoons and Fridays during the weeks of oral arguments. The justices set aside a fourth block of time to work on writing their opinions-the statements of what the justices have decided and their reasoning in the case. This writing period is usually in the weeks following each two weeks of oral argument.

The chief justice presides at the justices’ conferences and assigns a justice to write opinions. The chief justice also acts as spokesperson for the Court and for the federal judicial system, and supervises the Court’s budget and administrative staff. But in the central matter of hearing and deciding cases, the chief justice and the associate justices are equals.

For a major government institution, the Supreme Court has a relatively small staff of about 325 people. The Court’s annual budget is about $30 million, a tiny fraction of the total budget for the federal judiciary, which stood at $3.1 billion in 1996. Congress’s annual budget that year was about $2 billion. In 1996 Congress set the chief justice’s salary at $171,500, and the associate justices’ at $164,100.

The clerk of the Court serves as the Supreme Court’s chief administrative officer, supervising a staff of 30 under the guidance of the chief justice. The marshal of the Court supervises all building operations. The reporter of decisions oversees the printing and publication of the Court’s decisions. Other key personnel are the librarian and the public information officer. In addition, each justice is entitled to hire four law clerks, almost always recent top graduates of law schools, many of whom have served clerkships in a lower court the previous year.” (1)

Roberts Court Work

by Barry P. McDonald. He is a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University School of Law, and served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist (2010)

Note: there is more information about the Roberts Court here.

The Roberts Court produced the most unanimous decisions since its inaugural term in 2005 and, for the most part, avoided splitting itself along a sharp 5?4 line. Chief Justice John Roberts was front and center in the effort, recording one of the highest rates of majority voting as well as the lowest rate of authoring separate opinions. The statistics suggest that the chief justice is moderating his conservative predilections in favor of institutional cohesiveness. For example, in two important cases Roberts voted with the Court’s liberal bloc: in one taking a very broad view of Congress’s power to legislate in areas of traditional state control (U.S. v. Comstock, 130 S. Ct. 1949 (2010)), and in another holding that most life-without-parole prison terms for minors constitute cruel and unusual punishment (Graham v. Florida, 130 S. Ct. 2011 (2010)).

Although the number of closely divided decisions was relatively low this term, they were marked by a familiar pattern of voting and a notable activist bent. In Citizens United v. FEC (130 S. Ct. 876 (2010)), the conservative bloc ruled broadly that a federal statute restricting corporate spending for political ads in the run-up to elections violated the First Amendment. This result occurred despite the existence of ample grounds for a narrow holding that the statute could not be constitutionally applied to a “mockumentary” about then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The decision provoked a rare rebuke of the Court by President Obama in his State of the Union address.

It also prompted a separate opinion by the chief justice attempting to justify his vote in favor of the decision despite his professed commitment to a minimalist approach of deciding cases as narrowly as possible.
In McDonald v. Chicago (130 S. Ct. 3020 (2010)), the conservatives expanded exponentially their 2008 gun rights ruling (District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008)) to reach state and local gun control regulations. The Court characterized the right to keep arms in one’s home for self-defense as fundamental despite a number of intervening studies by prominent legal historians casting substantial doubt on this proposition (as well as on the basis for the 2008 ruling). And in Hollingsworth v. Perry (130 S. Ct. 705 (2010)), the conservative bloc issued an unusual rebuke to the district judge presiding over the federal challenge to California’s Proposition 8, granting a stay of his decision to allow cameras into the courtroom.

The Roberts Court is certainly willing to wade into difficult free speech issues.

The growing reputation of the Roberts Court as being pro-business drew force from several key rulings in addition to Citizens United, discussed above. In two 5?4 decisions dealing with the Federal Arbitration Act, the Court agreed with the business community’s positions that challenges to a contract’s enforceability can be decided by arbitrators instead of a court (Rent-A-Center West, Inc. v. Jackson, 130 S. Ct. 2772 (2010)), but arbitrators cannot decide to impose class arbitration on disputants when the contract is silent on that issue (Stolt-Nielsen v. AnimalFeeds Intl. Corp., 130 S. Ct. 1758 (2010)). And in the most anticipated patent ruling in years, the conservative justices ruled that business methods can in theory be patented; the liberal justices would have completely foreclosed such claims (Bilski v. Kappos, 130 S. Ct. 3218 (2010)). Finally, in a criminal appeal stemming from Enron’s financial collapse, the Court held unconstitutional an important prosecutorial tool that Congress had created for going after certain types of corporate fraud (Skilling v. U.S., 130 S. Ct. 2896 (2010)).

Reversing a long-standing trend, the Court’s rate of overturning Ninth Circuit decisions in 2010 (60 percent) was significantly below prior years as well as its average reversal rate of 71 percent for all decisions. Indeed, seven of the twelve major circuits had higher reversal rates, which is notable since the Ninth Circuit’s size means it usually has by far the most cases reviewed. Could it be that the Ninth Circuit is becoming more conservative, or just that it is tired of being the Court’s punching bag?.

Resources

Notes and References

Information about Supreme Court Work in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Supreme Court Work

Supreme Court Work in the United States

Supreme Court of the United States: The Work of the Court

Introduction to Supreme Court Work

Roberts Court Work

Resources

See Also

Notes and References

Guide to Supreme Court Work

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