U.S. Supreme Court

 Based on the videos I learned quite a few things I had not already known about the Supreme Court. Basically, the court uses laws to deal with human dilemmas. To quickly look back on the Supreme Court, I learned that when the U.S. government moved to Washington D.C., the Supreme Court was given temporary quarters until it was finished. In the years following, the Supreme Court grew to be respected and viewed as a separate branch of government. In addition to the history, I as informed about the workings of the U.S. Supreme Court. Once a justice is confirmed, they are responsible to the law and constitution, not to the president who appointed them, and the public does not have the ability to influence the decisions they make. They tell the president, congress, and states what they may or may not do. The court looks to the constitution to solve national problems. I also found it surprising that the Supreme Court receives about one hundred cases every week, most arrive as petitions trying to persuade the Supreme Court that lower court rulings were incorrect. However, the court only excepts about one hundred cases per year for consideration, which I was unaware of. The justices have clerks and staff to help review cases, but the judges are responsible for all decisions. The justices meet once a week to decide which cases to except. Something about the Supreme Court specifically I never knew is the difficulty for judges to be activists judges because they can't decide what problems they want to solve. They have to wait for people to bring problems to them, problems that have boiled up in the country. The Supreme Court hears cases in public, and each lawyer only has a half hour to argue their side of the case. The lawyers arguments are an opportunity for the judges to ask questions regarding what they read in the brief of the case. One thing I found interesting is that a case is less about the judges arguing back and forth with the lawyers, but rather about the judges having a discussion with each other that the lawyers mediate. Within a few days of the trial, the judges meet in the conference room to vote on the case and one of the justices on the majority side is assigned to write the opinion on why the court made its decision. This decision must be followed by other courts as they make future decisions in cases.