Smart conversation from the National Constitution Center
The United States Supreme Court is the highest court of the judicial branch of government—its duty is to interpret the law. Since 1803, the Supreme Court has been understood to have the power to declare national, state, and local laws unconstitutional. Article III of the Constitution defines the Supreme Court and which cases it can hear, and how other federal courts are established.
William Howard Taft is a truly unique American figure who led two branches of government, was a wrestling champion and the youngest Solicitor General in American history.
The Supreme Court will get another chance in its next term to decide the long-unresolved question of whether partisan gerrymandering violates the Constitution. In a new order in a North Carolina case, a lower federal court on Wednesday put that case on a fast track to reach the Justices even as their new term opens in early October.
On Friday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to end its public hearings about Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. So what comes next in the process?
It was on this day in 1807 that former Vice President Aaron Burr was acquitted of treason charges. The trial was truly a “Trial of the Century” in its time and one of the first big tests of the Constitution’s Treason clause.
On August 30, 1967, the Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall as the first African-American to serve as a Supreme Court Justice. Marshall was no stranger to the Senate or the Supreme Court at the time.
An important case due to reach the Supreme Court soon seeks to test the legality of collecting a massive database of recorded TV and radio programming and selling access to it to news outlets, scholars and other researches, government agencies, and the police.
Coming up in October, the Supreme Court starts a new term and hears new cases. Here’s a quick look at three cases the Justices will consider during their first week of arguments.
A Ninth Circuit appeals court ruling may bring a question back to the Supreme Court about the ability to sue border agents at the United States-Mexico border for fatal shootings.
On August 12, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated then-Senator Hugo Black of Alabama to the Supreme Court.
On June 17, 1972, police caught five men breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. So how did a “third-rate burglary” escalate into a near constitutional crisis?