They hear cases regarding federal laws, federal constitutional issues, and crimes punishable under both federal and state law and many more. The justices decide what cases they want to hear and they usually are cases addressing constitutional issues or federal law. For cases to get to the US Supreme Court parties who are not satisfied with the decision of a lower court have to petition the Supreme Court to hear their case. By doing that, you have ask to grant a writ of certiorari. The jurisdiction is up to the US Supreme Court; they decide and have the authority to hear a case. There are 4 types of jurisdiction and the US Supreme Court uses all (“Supreme Court Justices”). They are exclusive jurisdiction, concurrent jurisdiction, original jurisdiction and appellate jurisdiction. The chief justice leads a conference with a discussion relating to the case by reviewing case facts and the lower court decisions. If the US Supreme Court does not pick a case that was reviewed the vote from the lower court stands. In the US Supreme Court, there is no evidence presented or no witnesses. Each side has 30 minutes to present oral arguments which are opportunities for lawyers to summarize their position before the court and they are interrupted by the …show more content…
The first way is by writing an opinion. There are 3 major types of opinions made by Federal and State Supreme Courts but a majority opinion affects a case the most. A majority opinion is a statement that presents the views of the majority of the Supreme Court justices regarding a case. This opinion is usually written by the chief justice but other justices can write it. A majority opinion states the facts of the case, announces the ruling and explains court reasoning. The majority opinion is important because it defines the precedent that all the future cases hearing a similar case should follow. By writing this opinion the chief justice can affect the outcome of a case because if they’re going over the facts of a case, reading it over they might have a positive feeling or a negative feeling about what they want to decide. When explaining the ruling or verdict, the court explains why they ruled what they did. By doing that everyone can know what made them choose their verdict. When choosing a verdict you focus on what you think is important and what thing makes you want to vote positively or negatively about the case. Having odd number of justice’s help as well because that gives a lead when you vote, lots of votes can be 9-0 or 5-4. Another opinion is a concurring opinion, this is where there is a justice who agrees with the majority but he or she agrees for different reasons and the purpose