CHAPTER TEn
 The American Legal System and the Courts

Exercises

Getting to the Court

  1. Read the Current Supreme Court Justices' biographies available from the Supreme Court's web site.
  2. Answer the following questions:
    • What backgrounds did each of the justices have before being appointed to the Court?
    • Did some justices serve as judges longer than others before being appointed to the Court?
    • Think about the four criteria discussed in the text that presidents consider when making a Supreme Court nomination. Why do you think the president chose to appoint each justice?

Voting together/voting apart

  1. Go to Congressional Quarterly's Supreme Court Collection. (Your school will need to be a subscriber to access this site.)
  2. Click on "Voting Bloc Analysis" on the left-hand side of the page.
  3. Pick two justices from the current Supreme Court (Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, Souter, Stevens, and Thomas) and see how often they agreed and disagreed. Based on what you know about these justices, do the results surprise you? Why would you expect them to agree? Why might they disagree?

You can be really creative with this feature. You may enter several different combinations of justices as well as look at the results for all issues or break them down by specific issues. Enter different combinations and see how the results change. After you've looked at several different combinations, what voting blocs appear to exist on the Court? Do any of the justices seem to be swing voters (in other words, they don't consistently vote with one side)?


The role of the judge

  1. Go to Congressional Quarterly's Supreme Court Collection. (Your school will need to be a subscriber to access this site.)
  2. Click on "Justice Role Finder" on the left-hand side of the page.
  3. Choose each justice from the current Supreme Court (Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, Souter, Stevens, and Thomas).
  4. Based on the results, which judge has voted with the majority the most often? Which justice has voted with the majority the least often? Which justice has written the most concurring opinions?

Again, have fun with this feature. After you've examined the roles of the judges on all cases, pick one or two issues that are important to you. Do you still see the same trends from the earlier analysis?