The Highest Court

Grade 10 , 1250L
A AA

Passage 1
The Supreme Court is the most important part of the government when it comes to
enacting large-scale change. However, paradoxically, it is also the major body that most
citizens know the least about. The framers of the Constitution seem to have been the
least certain about the judicial branch as a whole. In terms of words, the Constitution
devotes far more space to the other branches than it does to the judicial branch, and it
does little beyond establish the Supreme Court as the highest court in the land. Thus, it
is confusing that a body seen as an afterthought by the framers has come to have such
a dramatic effect on American life.
Indeed, the Supreme Court did not have that much power until the landmark
decision of Marbury v. Madison (1803). In the case, William Marbury sued James
Madison (who, somewhat coincidentally, was the author of most of the wording of the
Constitution) to deliver documents that enabled Marbury to become Justice of the Peace
in the District of Columbia. However, what was really at stake was the role of the
Supreme Court in the government. The case helped set the divide between the
branches of government and, more significantly, established the process of judicial
review. By that process, the Supreme Court gets to decide whether laws passed by the
legislative branch and enforced by the executive branch are, in fact, constitutional. It is
through this process that the Supreme Court has been able to make the broad changes
to which I have previously alluded.

Passage 2
The Supreme Court has, interestingly, been both a body that brought about
sweeping reforms and also one that upheld the status quo. This might seem like a
contradiction, but it’s true. The Supreme Court upheld slavery and later segregation
before (sixty years later) agreeing that segregation was unconstitutional. It has also at
various points decreased and increased the powers of police forces or the limits of free
speech. How can this be so?
Well, partially, it is because the Supreme Court has been made up of different
members since its inception. The nine-person body is made of justices appointed for life.
When a Justice retires, a new Supreme Court judge is appointed. Each judge comes to
a case with her or his own opinions, yet bases decisions on precedent and on
interpretation of the Constitution. This can change over time, and depends on the make-
up of the Court. Precedent is a previous case or decision through which subsequent
cases are considered or followed. That is, if a court has decided that something is legal,
following precedent would mean that cases after that one should uphold that original
ruling. However, the Supreme Court is the final court of the nation, and it decides if
cases from regional judges will stand or be overturned.
In this way, the Supreme Court sets its own precedent, and may decide to overturn
it in the future. Thus, when the Warren Court (so named because the Chief Justice was
Earl Warren) decided that precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was not appropriate
and no longer applicable in the decision of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), it
brought forth the sweeping reform of integration. So, even though the same body had
previously ruled that discriminating treatment of people based on skin color was legal,
60 years later, it no longer was.
Foner, Eric. Give Us Liberty! New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. Book.
Schwarts, Bernard. A History of the Supreme Court. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Book.