When the fathers funding written the U.S. Constitution, they made sure that the executive branch of the president and the legislative branch of Congress did not abuse of their power toward the U.S. States and their citizens by creating a third branch: the judicial branch, putting as the head of it the Supreme Court of the United States (or SCOTUS). The SCOTUS not only is involved in the role of making solid and stable the US government, but it also performs the role of highest federal court in the country. Therefore, it has the ultimate jurisdiction over all laws within the United States and is responsible for evaluating the constitutionality of those laws. Yet, the Supreme Court is actually composed of nine members in total: one Chief Justice of the United Stated, and eight members who are called Associates Justices. In this paper, I am going to discuss about the history of the Supreme Court, how it ended up being a court of nine members, how a case makes its way to the Supreme Court, and how the Constitution is differently interpreted by Republicans and Democrats.
First, the Supreme Court founding is a mixture of what the founding fathers wrote in the U.S. Constitution and the Congress’s powers. According to History.com the Supreme Court was officially instituted during the foundation of the U.S. Constitution in 1789 (History.com). In fact, the third article of the Constitution establishes the judicial branch of the federal government, which, again, comprehends the Supreme Court and inferior federal courts; however, the latter are granted by the power given to Congress (History.com). Moreover, what made the Supreme Court working was Congress. Yet, the Constitution allowed Congress to decide how the Supreme Court was supposed to be set up, and through the Judiciary Act of 1789 signed by President George Washington, the Congress organized the court with six justices who would serve on the court until they died or retired (History.com).
The first official day of work for the Supreme Court was February 2, 1790 because the justices had some transportation problems to get to the place of the meeting which was the Merchants Exchange Building in New York City; if it was not for those issues, the justices would have met the day before (History.com). However, the first meetings were not focused on any cases, but they were purely concentrated on organizational and bureaucratic procedures. The Supreme Court’s first case was on August 3, 1971 with West v. Barnes, an unremarkable case involving a financial dispute between a farmer and a family he owed debt to (History.com). Moreover, most of the first cases became landmarks for the next cases because the justices had to interpret Constitutional Amendments for their first time (History.com). For example, according to United State Courts, the Mapp v. Ohio set an important landmark about cases regarding violation of the fourth amendment. This case took place in 1961 because police officers, "while searching Dollree Mapp's house, discovered obscene materials and arrested her. Because the police officers never produced a search warrant, she argued that the materials should be suppressed as the fruits of an illegal search and seizure. The Supreme Court agreed and applied to the states the exclusionary rule from Weeks v. United States in 1914” (Mapp v. Ohio).
Again, since the Supreme Court’s number of justices is set up by Congress, its number changed over the years. According to History.com the first Supreme Court was composed of one Chief Justice and five Associate Justices, who were John Rutledge, William Cushing, John Blair, Robert Harrison and James Wilson (History.com). However, in several occasions the number of seats changed. For example, according to National Constitution Center, in 1801, President John Adams passed a Judiciary Act that reduced the Court to five Justices in an attempt to limit incoming President Thomas Jefferson’s appointments to the high bench (Why Does the Supreme Court Have Nine Justices?). Jefferson and his Republicans soon repealed that act, putting the Court back to six Justices. After that, in some occasions Congress added new federal court circuits, resulting with some acts in 1807, 1837, and 1863 that lead the seats in Courts to get to ten; however, in 1866 when the Civil War ended Congress reduced the Court to seven Justices, and, lastly, it brought it back to nine in 1869 by Senator Lyman Trumbull, and the Court never changed since (Why Does the Supreme Court Have Nine Justices?). From another point of view, this changes of number of seats can be interpreted as political maneuvers by Congress in order to either help or hinder the President of the United States. For example, Congress with the Judiciary Act of 1866 avoided that President Andrew Johnson, who was about to be impeached, named any new Supreme Court Justices.
Next, the Supreme Court does not hear all the cases that lower courts file to them. They follow a specific procedure before even considering it. According to Robert Longley in his article "How Do Cases Reach the US Supreme Court?" the Supreme Court in order to hear an appeal from a lower court, has to have four out of its nine justices to vote to grant a "writ of certiorari” (Longley). Yet, Court grants “cert” agreeing to hear only to those cases considered important (Longley). Moreover, there are three ways cases reach the Supreme Court: appeals to Courts of appeals decisions, appeals from State Supreme Courts, and under the Court’s “Original Jurisdiction” (Longley). The first one is the most common way that Supreme Court receives cases. It is an appeal to a decision issued by of one of the U.S. Courts of Appeal. The latter decides whether or not lower trial courts had applied the law correctly in their decisions, and in case file a petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court (Longley). The second one is less common because the Supreme Court will not hear cases of States Supreme Court regarding State Laws, but they will hear more about cases that involves an interpretation of the U.S. Constitution (Longley). The last one, and the least common one is for original jurisdiction cases, which are cases heard by the Supreme Court without going through the appeals courts process; these cases usually involves disputes between states, and public ministers (Longley).
However, the party’s ideology can affect how the Constitution is interpreted before a case is brought to the Supreme Court with the appeals to Courts of appeal decisions. Since parties are the one that file the petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court when they wish to appeal a circuit court’s decision, their point of view of how the Constitution should be interpreted will affect whether or not the case is brought to the Supreme Court. In fact, as Jocely Kiley reports in its article “Americans Divided on How the Supreme Court Should Interpret the Constitution.” the majority of Republicans, which is about the 70% of them, say that Justices should base their rulings on the Constitution’s original meaning regarding the time that it has been written; while, on the other hand, Democrats stands for the opposite way, so that the Court should understand the Constitution’s meaning in current times (Kiley). Moreover, the influence of both parties in Supreme Court’s decision is aided by the fact that the President names the new Justices for the Court; therefore, it is more easily for the majority party to have someone in the juridical branch by their side, and interpreting the Constitution mirroring the party’s ideology.
In conclusion, this paper explained how overall the Supreme Court works, how it has been formed, the way is composed, how cases get to the Court, and how parties’ ideology influences the interpretation of the Constitution.