The role of the Supreme Court
Nine men and women, appointed for life, hold the power to strike down any law passed by any legislature in the United States. No other democracy gives its highest court quite this much authority. Understanding why the founders created this arrangement — and what it was meant to protect — is essential to understanding America.
What Article III created
Article III of the Constitution established one Supreme Court and left everything else to Congress. It said remarkably little about what the Court would actually do. The founders understood that the judiciary was, in Alexander Hamilton's words, "the least dangerous branch" — it had neither the sword of the executive nor the purse of the legislature. But they gave it something equally powerful: the last word on what the law means.
Marbury v. Madison
In 1803, Chief Justice John Marshall established the doctrine of judicial review in a case involving a minor appointment dispute. His reasoning was elegant: the Constitution is the supreme law of the land; if a law passed by Congress conflicts with the Constitution, the Constitution must prevail; and it falls to the courts to say what the Constitution means. This was not in the Constitution explicitly, but it followed logically from the principle of constitutional supremacy. No one has successfully challenged the logic since.
How the Court works
Each year the Supreme Court receives roughly seven thousand petitions asking it to hear a case. It agrees to hear about eighty. Cases are argued orally — each side gets thirty minutes — and the justices deliberate in private conference. A majority opinion, signed by the justices who agree, becomes the law of the land. Justices who disagree may write dissents, which carry no legal force but often shape future arguments. Some of the most important opinions in American history began as dissents.
Life tenure and independence
Federal judges serve "during good behavior" — which in practice means for life. This was deliberate. The founders wanted judges who could decide cases based on the law and the Constitution, not based on what was politically popular. A judge who fears removal has a compromised independence. Life tenure is not a gift to judges; it is a protection for the rule of law. It has costs — aging justices sometimes serve past their prime — but the alternative, judges subject to political pressure, was judged far worse.
What the Court cannot do
The Supreme Court is powerful, but it is not unlimited. It cannot introduce legislation. It cannot enforce its own decisions — it depends on the executive branch to do that. It can only rule on cases brought before it. And its decisions can be overridden: by constitutional amendment, which has happened, or gradually, by the appointment of justices with different constitutional views. The Court is the guardian of the Constitution. It is not above it.