Comments on: Why are there 9 Supreme Court Justices? (And why have a Supreme Court at all?)

By: Harry Fuller

Harry Fuller — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:54:01 +0000

It seems to me that there should be an even number of justices so that there will have to be at least two more on the “winning” side as opposed to the fact that a single justice can be the linchpin for any huge and final decision.
Secondly, I think cases should be decided by a computer program. While it probably will take many years to develop a program, it would literally take opinion and passion out of the equation. I know this will take many years to accomplish but I think one should be developed and it’s decision advertised in parallel with the human (emotional and prejudiced) votes. The program can be tweaked until it’s worth is obvious, and perhaps someday might replace the fallible humans in the equation) This is not so insane as it seems since decisions should always be decided on logic rather than passion and as long as no competing logical decision is handed down we’ll never know how it might work!

By: Philip

Philip — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 04:47:00 +0000

The Supreme Court was originally divided into 3 Circuit Courts with 2 Supreme Court Justices to include the Chief Justice to “ride Circuit” within their alloted Circuits. The Court was to expand as the nation expanded and added Circuit Courts. This was halted by Congress when the Supreme Court had expanded to 10 Circuits and 10 Justices during Andrew Johnsons presidency. The Congress was upset with Johnson persuing Lincolns wishes as to how to treat the South after the Civil War. Also Chief Justice Chase wished to give his justices greater salery and had only a limited budget to draw from so he encourged Congress to reduce the membership. So now we have Justice Souter covering the 1st & 3rd Circuit or now called Appelate Courts, Justice Stevens covering the 6th & 7th and Chief Justice Roberts covering the 4th, the DC Court and the Federal Court. If tradition had been upheld then the Court would now number 13 members which is the symbolic number of these United States of America.

By: Claire

Claire — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:13:48 +0000

On the subject of the enforcement of supreme court decisions, there was a case in Georgia in the 1800’s whose ruling was not enforced. I believe a Native American tribe was either trying to re-claim land that was stolen from them by the US government or keeping land from begin stolen. either way, the SC sided with the tribe saying it was their land first and we had to claim to force them off. I believe Andrew Jackson was president at the time and he publicly stated he wasn’t going to follow their order. He still allowed the land to be seized and the Native Americans to be forced off and further west.

i was really disappointed when i learned about that court case in high school. White America had a chance to put things right with that tribe and we blew it because we had a racist pig for a president. i wish i could remember the name of the court case.

By: Bandit

Bandit — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:02:59 +0000

Oh, Judy, you see so much more than the rest of us. Everything happens for some bizarre evil motive, doesn’t it?

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:13:49 +0000

Actually, I looked back at my notes (yes, I’m a dork), and you’re right. It did go to Congress, specifically the Senate, but it was sent back to committee with no hope of passing due to the death of its main proponent. Before it was to be voted on again, however, Justice Roberts changed his mind and abandoned the freedom of contract doctrine. The court-packing section was stripped from the bill before it was voted into law.

Funnily enough, my reCAPTCHA word for this comment is federal!

By: David H.

David H. — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:29:39 +0000

Mike, you are right, I am wrong AND bad at math.

There are 5 Roman Catholic justices: Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Roberts and Alito.

There are two Jews: Breyer and Ginsburg.

And the source I used (see link) has Stevens and Souter as Episcopalians.

And Josh, you may know better than I. I went back and read the information I had and it wasn’t clear. It *seemed* to say that Roosevelt sent the legislation to Congress, but that it was never acted upon.

By: Judy

Judy — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:08:56 +0000

Dubya didn’t really nominate Meiers because he wanted to replace O’Conner with a woman. The truth was that he wanted to replace her with a white male, but needed to be seen as trying to replace her with a woman, so he nominated someone so blatantly unqualified that no one would find her acceptable. Then, having done his “duty”, he could go ahead and nominate the man he wanted.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:47:37 +0000

I believe only five of the justices are Catholic, two more are Christian, but not Catholic, and two are Jewish.

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:57:16 +0000

I’m really enjoying these posts, the SC has a really interesting history. However, with regards to the court-packing plan, didn’t the Act never make it to Congress? I learned in my con law class that the plan was not submitted because one justice switched his stance and allowed more federal power. See ‘the switch in time that saved nine.’
While historians may not agree on whether the announcement of the plan actually contributed to a switch in ideologies, it seems clear FDR would have gone through with his idea had West Coast Hotel not come out the way it did.