During this reading, I was intrigued by the process a particular case must undergo to be considered by the justices of the Supreme Court. As petitions of certiorari, clerks examine them before any judge will see them. If they fulfill the criteria, the cases will then go into what is known as the cert pool - a collection of petitions that the justices split amongst themselves for individual examination. After, if said cases are considered noteworthy by the justices, they make it onto the discuss list. As the final checkpoint, the judges vote on whether or not to hear the case - following the Rule of Four, which requires a minimum of four justices to vote affirmatively to see the case.
While this process thins out a little under 99% of the cases …show more content…
Behind each of those cases that are qualified for certiorari, but don’t make the further cuts, is a person or a group of people who have faced difficulty in fighting for the justice they deserve. Their rights were denied to them, there was a mistrial, they were wrongfully charged - for whatever reason, these people have been done wrong by the justice system. Ultimately, this adds up to something we, as a society, must remember - while there is no conceivable way to give these cases the time they deserve in the Supreme Court, we must work to understand what makes a case successful or unsuccessful; that is to say, we need to comprehend the system so we can be more vigilant with the Court and its …show more content…
On one hand, restraint upholds the Constitution in the most absolute way possible of the judicial branch, but consequent of its objective nature, injustice in rulings cannot be prevented. On the other hand, activism allows for wrongful rulings and the like to be prevented, but it leaves the power of the judicial branch vulnerable to abuse by one of the justices. Further, each approach has its success stories - for restraint, cases like Brown v. Board of Education were decided largely, if not entirely, on the basis of the Constitution (in this case, the 14th Amendment); for activism, cases like Roe v. Wade created new rights that weren’t expressly mentioned in the Constitution, but catalyzed a number of equality
While this process thins out a little under 99% of the cases …show more content…
Behind each of those cases that are qualified for certiorari, but don’t make the further cuts, is a person or a group of people who have faced difficulty in fighting for the justice they deserve. Their rights were denied to them, there was a mistrial, they were wrongfully charged - for whatever reason, these people have been done wrong by the justice system. Ultimately, this adds up to something we, as a society, must remember - while there is no conceivable way to give these cases the time they deserve in the Supreme Court, we must work to understand what makes a case successful or unsuccessful; that is to say, we need to comprehend the system so we can be more vigilant with the Court and its …show more content…
On one hand, restraint upholds the Constitution in the most absolute way possible of the judicial branch, but consequent of its objective nature, injustice in rulings cannot be prevented. On the other hand, activism allows for wrongful rulings and the like to be prevented, but it leaves the power of the judicial branch vulnerable to abuse by one of the justices. Further, each approach has its success stories - for restraint, cases like Brown v. Board of Education were decided largely, if not entirely, on the basis of the Constitution (in this case, the 14th Amendment); for activism, cases like Roe v. Wade created new rights that weren’t expressly mentioned in the Constitution, but catalyzed a number of equality