Power Of The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is a very powerful part of the government. The Supreme Court is the highest federal court in the United States. This court has a higher power than any other court in the nation meaning that they alone decide the meaning of the constitution. The Supreme Court has nine justices that decide the constitutionality of cases that petition them. The
Supreme Court derives their power through “judicial review” Judicial review is the act of declaring of a law or act of another branch as constitutional or not. The supreme court has had the power of judicial review since the case of Marbury v Madison. The power of judicial review came from the Supreme Court itself in a case called Marbury v Madison. Marbury v Madison gave the Supreme
For example, judges get to stay in their position for life and when they make a decision, even a bad one, it stays and is a precedent for lower courts. Recently, a problem broke out with a court decision where judge Genece Brinkley sentenced Meek Mill to a two to four years in jail. This happened because he was supposedly doing wheelings on a bike in New York without a helmet. The police officer that claimed this had happened has recently been put on a list of “tainted” cops which means he has a history of lying, being racist, or causing brutality. Meek claims that he did not do that and evidence is starting to show that it could be true. But the judge does still not want to hear the case for new evidence. The Supreme Court judges are not elected but are appointed by the president and the people don’t have a say in who the judges are. Judges are also getting appointed earlier and serve up to 30-40 years, which is way more than one person should be able to serve. For example, Anthony Kennedy was appointed at age 51 and is now 81. He has served for 30 years and is still going, it is not fair that Supreme Court justices get to stay in position for life. Until recently all Supreme Court justices were white men and there wasn’t anyone there to represent minorities. Since the court wasn't diverse it gave them a lot of power because they were all white men. For example, in Buchanan v Warley they ruled it was unconstitutional to sell property to blacks. This was a bad ruling but happened because the court wasn’t diverse and there weren't many opinions. Overall, the Supreme Court does have a lot of power but they don’t abuse it and use it only when needed. The Supreme Court uses what is stated in the Constitution and decides based off of laws that are