The SCOTUS - Reflection on Historical Videos

 The Supreme Court is the most powerful judicial body on the entire planet. Its unique ability to regulate the other governmental bodies gives it a unique power to not only prevent change, but allow and force it. It took quite a large amount of effort to get the Supreme Court to where it is today, and some important information about it, both past and present, is lost upon most Americans.

One thing that I did not know about the Supreme Court was the amount of cases they receive yearly (roughly 7,000) vs the amount that gain full consideration (roughly 100). Another interesting concept I did not know too much about was a Trial Court. A Trial Court answers most of the legal questions before the case makes its way to one of the justices. The justices, as well, individually examine cases that are brought to them. One last piece of information shared that I found interesting was not what the Supreme Court does with cases that are denied, but how the media reports on these rejected cases. When the SC does not accept a case for review, the media reports that they upheld the decision or ordered something to happen, when they never even fully considered it.

I felt that the most important take-away from the Supreme Court was the overall process for a particular case. If a case makes it to the Supreme Court, it has to reach the desk of one of the Justices. Then, that justice has to bring it to a weekly conference with the others for it to be addressed. After that, they decide on which cases to take on and which to reject. After that, they go through a series of briefings, asking questions in relation to the case. Finally, the prosecution and defendants make an oral argument. When this whole process is done, the justices write a final opinion after several draft attempts, and this opinion is released with the rest of the opinions to the press in late June. This is the most important take-away because knowing the process is more important than any other piece of information.

The most surprising thing I learned was the amount of cases that get generally disregarded by the Supreme Court justices. I just found it shocking that so many cases made it that far, and just how many were never fully considered. I had always felt that very few cases made it to the court, which made me think of less than 500 a year. Looking at it logically, it makes sense that they get as many as they do because of how many local courts there are in the country, but the fact that roughly 1.5% of cases that the Supreme Court sees are officially taken on by all of the judges just really shocked me.

Throughout the past few years, I always felt that the Supreme Court justices allowed their political leaning to influence their rulings throughout American history. What made me incredibly happy was that they don't let their political views, for the most part, interfere with an unbiased ruling. When it comes to court decisions, being unbiased is imperative, but humans will be human. Bias will sneak in, but it felt nice to know that the Supreme Court puts forth their best effort to give the proper ruling on things in relation to the Constitution rather than the "correct" ruling based on current political tides.