The Supreme Court
The purpose of the Supreme Court is to review or address cases that involve issues on a federal level or of constitutional law, just as appellate courts hear cases on a state level. Their responsibilities include deciding how to apply the principles of constitutional law to new matters and issues that arise in today’s day to day legal process; they also play the role of the “parent” to lower federal appellate courts when their decisions on legal issues are contradicting to one another, overlap, goes against constitutional rights, or allows room for confusion as to whose decision takes precedent. Bottom line the purpose of the Supreme Court is to provide the rules and statues for state level courts to abide by when they involve federal or constitutional matters, making them the highest court of law.
The Supreme Court is made up of nine judges or justices of the peace that are appointed by the President of the United States and the advice of the senate, their titles include one chief and eight associates that serve a life term. By law there are no particular requirements, educational experience or background, or law degrees necessary to become a Supreme Court judge, but because the advice of senate is used by the President of the United States to select the justices their experience and background is taken into consideration. These nine justices makeup what is considered a full court, however it only takes six justices to makeup a lawful bench and in some circumstances it only requires one member of the justices to be present advocating the role of a circuit judge. (Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, 1996) The Supreme Court is at the head of federal couts and makes the final decision when dealing with the federal judiciary process and is stuctured to hear cases in three ways, original jurisdiction, appeals from circuit courts, and appeals from state supreme courts. Original Jurisdiction which is the least common is where the Supreme court hear cases directly and no other supreme court is needed to hear the case giving the Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction. The other two ways of presenting a case to the Supreme court which is through appeals by either the ciruit courts which is the most common or a state supreme court which does happen comes about when constitional law is in question, however the Supreme Court will rarely challenge the ruling of a state’s supreme court unless deemed necessary. The difference in the process of cases heard by the Supreme Court is they get to decide out of the many cases presented to them which ones they want to hear, they complete this process by taking a vote and if at least four votes in favor of the case is not obtained then the request is denied but in fairness the judges decide to vote on the cases the feel hold the greatest importance. Once the case is heard the justices hold a closed court meeting and draw up conclusions or opinions on the case that will be used as the Supreme courts final decision, these decsion can be unanimous or individual they can be in agreement but for different reasons or they can agree on some issues but not others. For this reason the opinion of the court can be defined in four different ways whih are majority opinion, concurring opinion, dissenting opinion, and per curiam which means as a majority the justices reached a decision but without one justice in particular taking ownership. (Mosk, 1999)
As mentioned before the Supreme Court represents the law of the land so the scope of their discretionary power goes far and affects everyone that comes in contact with the law or the legal system. The Supreme Court has the power to determine what cases it wants to review and can command action in regards to other official judicial bodies. The positive aspect of this is the Supreme courts ruling takes precedent over previous judicial rulings and helps to settle many inconsistencies within state laws that have an effect on us as citizens and our constitutional rights. The Supreme court has the right to determine how to apply constitutional meaning to practices and concepts that help to define our legal system as a whole, however this can also be the negative aspect of the Supreme Court as well due to the fact that their decisions are unable to be challenged by lower courts, which to some could be seen as a political tool questioning the motive or intent of the justices on some issues. In my opinion this rule is of fairness because without drawing the line and having a court to reach a final decision and establish authority legal matters could stay in appeal courts for years, constantly being argued and picked apart. The part to the Supreme Courts process I will disagree with is being able to decide what cases to hear and the justices serving for life terms. In my opinion both of these factors allow room for bias and prejudice which should always be one of our constitutional rights that are highly upheld, giving the supreme Courts random cases to address during their term, increasing the length of their term allowing for more cases to be reviewed, and decreasing the term of each judges years of service by switching justices after a given period of time will allow for justice to be bigger than the messenger.

Reference

The Judicial System. (1996). In Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/entry/mwdlaw/the_judicial_system

Mosk, S. (1999). Federal Court Concepts. Retrieved from http://adacourse.org/courtconcepts/scotus.html