How The U.S. Supreme Court's function compares to other branches of government

 

The Supreme Court is a model for the world. The Court interprets the constitution, a 200 year old document,

draws boundaries to government power and is a coequal branch of government. 

After watching the videos, I learned some things I did not know about the Supreme Court.

Not taking a case does not mean that the Supreme Court upheld the ruling from a lower court.

We often hear the news report that when the

Court does not take a case they upheld the ruling from a lower court,

but it actually means that the Court refused to hear the case and just let the lower court ruling stand.

The case could be brought back to the Court if they have a new argument is presented.  

The most important take-away point is that the Supreme Court does not deal with issues unless the issue

will have a broad impact. The Court dose not look for issues to resolve like other branches of government who manage issues every day.

The most surprising thing I learned from the videos is that the Supreme Court looks at 100 cases a week or about 7000 cases a year.

With nine justices that is a lot of paperwork to go through to make the decision to take a case or not.

Once they decide to take the case they then have to hear arguments and write opinions before a final decision is made.

Since the Supreme Court is more secretive than other branches of the government, I assumed that the

Court functioned more like Congress but in fact they can only choose to address or not address the issues placed before them.

It was interesting to learn that The Dred Scott decision damaged the reputation of the Supreme Court until the Civil War.

The 14th Amendment said all citizens have rights and that amendment was the beginning of restoring the court's reputation.