Talk:Supreme Court of the United States

No info re: appointment of chief justice?

This article does not seem to explain how/when a justice becomes chief justice of the SCOTUS. It is explained in the dedicated Chief Justice of the United States article, but it seems like it should at least be mentioned here.

Perhaps the first sentence of the "Nomination, confirmation, and appointment" section should be amended to: "Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, known as the Appointments Clause, empowers the president to nominate and, with the confirmation (advice and consent) of the United States Senate, to appoint public officials, including justices of the Supreme Court, including the position of chief justice" (with "chief justice" linking to the dedicated page.) Chconnor (talk) 20:29, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

John Roberts is the present Chief Justice. There are some who say Neil Gorsuch being appointed was a shallow manipulation or selling out of American democracy by preventing Merrick Garland from being confirmed to the Supreme Court or even getting a hearing. Source: New York University Press, 2010. 199.242.176.66 (talk) 19:09, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

All of the information on appointment of the Chief Justice is at Chief Justice of the United States. Why would we need to repeat that in two articles? BD2412 T 19:38, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Legal analysis improperly described as written evidence

In the edit of 19:43, 24 July 2024, the section titled Written evidence refers to "amicus briefs, law review articles, and other written works". These do not constitute evidence, but are the basis of legal analysis and argument. Fabrickator (talk) 20:08, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

What would you suggest? Superb Owl (talk) 20:24, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Apparent miswording

I'm not sure how to parse this text from Supreme Court of the United States#Outdated and an outlier, stating

... the court has declined in relevance in other constitutional courts ...

This was introduced in this edit of 18 March 2024. Fabrickator (talk) 09:39, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Needs rewording; what it is meant to say is that constitutional courts in other countries used to look at decisions in the U.S. Supreme Court as guidance, and used to often follow it. But more recently, this influence/relevance has declined, and constitutional courts in other countries are no longer doing so. From the article cited:

Judges around the world have long looked to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court for guidance, citing and often following them in hundreds of their own rulings since the Second World War.

But now American legal influence is waning. Even as a debate continues in the court over whether its decisions should ever cite foreign law, a diminishing number of foreign courts seem to pay attention to the writings of American justices.

“One of our great exports used to be constitutional law,” said Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. “We are losing one of the greatest bully pulpits we have ever had.”

From 1990 through 2002, for instance, the Canadian Supreme Court cited decisions of the United States Supreme Court about a dozen times a year, an analysis by The New York Times found. In the six years since, the annual citation rate has fallen by half, to about six. Australian state supreme courts cited American decisions 208 times in 1995, according to a recent study by Russell Smyth, an Australian economist. By 2005, the number had fallen to 72.

So it is trying to say that the court's relevance for other constitutional courts has declined. Magidin (talk) 16:05, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Bias

The “Criticism and Controversies” section could not be considered neutral. It looks, to me, to be ripped straight from a news article(s) that doesn’t like the conservative majority or the rulings they’ve made in the past couple years RestCivil (talk) 00:26, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

minor points

It strikes me that the recent edit adding a wikilink to Supreme Court is more of a distraction than a useful link. If I need to rationalize this (going against the general rule of wikilinking whatever you can), when you're already on the "Supreme Court of the United States" article, this is exactly what is implied by the words "supreme court", i.e. a court for which there is no superior court, such a wikilink is superfluous.

Then there's the edit stating that today there are nine justices ... If it's really necessary to clarify that it hasn't always consisted of nine justices, "today" is the wrong word to describe this, but I think it was quite satisfactory to just say there are nine justices, otherwise we should find it appropriate to qualify every statement of fact that is not eternally true. Fabrickator (talk) 08:25, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Did you know that the Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial level court of general jurisdiction in New York? So, no, the words "supreme court" do not, by themselves, indicate that there is no court above it. Magidin (talk) 15:51, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware that "supreme court" is used in what seem to be very misleading ways. But even for those who live in New York, "Supreme Court of the United States" refers to the highest court of the U.S., not some lower-level New York State court. The wikilink to Supreme Court does not elucidate upon the meaning of the "U.S. Supreme Court", it is what I would characterize as an unhelpful distraction. Fabrickator (talk) 16:52, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I do not understand what "even to those who live in New York" might be supposed to be arguing. If you are saying that those already familiar with the Supreme Court of the United States know that there is no court above it, then that seems both tautological and irrelevant: the article is not aimed at those who already know that "Supreme Court of the United States" is the highest court. The argument against the link appeared to be that there is no need to expand on what "Supreme Court" means because the words themeselves already tell you that it is a court with no court above it... which is patently not the case, as you admit. Now, if the argument is that there is no point to wikilink to "Supreme Court" when two paragraphs above it there is already a wikilink to that page under Highest court... that I agree with, but we could have started there instead of an incorrect assertion that the words "supreme court" already and necessarily convey what they in fact do not. Magidin (talk) 15:36, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

when did the SCOTUS become discretionary in appelate cases?

Editor User:Magidin suggested the following addition to the article: "It is a fact that the changes in mandatory appellate jurisdiction come mostly from the Judge's Bill from of 1925, not from 1988. I just finished reading Vladek's book, to which I directed you, which has an entire chapter discussing these changes, made mostly at the behest of Chief Justice Taft. You can also see the following quote in the page for the Judiciary Act of 1925: Congress chose to pass the act in 1925. This action rendered the majority of the Supreme Court's workload discretionary by removing the possibility of direct appeal to the court in most circumstances. Henceforth, pursuant to §237(b) of the act, appellants would file petitions for writs of certiorari with the Supreme Court, which would be accepted at the discretion of four of the nine Justices. You seem to believe otherwise but provide no citations; the page for the 1998 Act quotes Section 1257 before the changes as providing that the Supreme Court may review certain judgements, not that it must review them." - Walter Tau believes, that something like this but briefier (you know what it means) should be in the very first paragraph.

I personally think, that it is highly desirable to compare SCOTUS with analogous courts in other countries, which have a separate Constitutional Court and a separate Highest Court of Appeals. I can write this section and provide numerous book references, but I want to get an agreement on where to place this section first. Walter Tau (talk) 01:22, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Okay, first, I did not "suggest" such an addition. I replied, in my talk page to you saying "we can discuss further, whether the legislative act 1988 , or an actual earlier date, or both should be mentioned there" with the above, and nowhere did I say I wanted to add that. So please don't say that I proposed an "addition" that I did not propose. I did no such thing, and nothing I wrote there suggests that I am proposing that paragraph as an addition.

Second, I continue to think that such a mention does not belong in the lede. There are plenty of substantive differences between the US Supreme Court and other courts (such as a lack of retirement age), and having any one of them in the lede, or "the very first paragraph", is unwarranted as giving it unwarranted weight, and listing them all is out of place in the lede.

A mention of the changes in mandatory appellate jurisdiction is probably a good idea, but it belongs in the Appellate Jurisdiction subsection in the Jurisdiction section, not in the lede. The major change came with the Judge's Bill in 1925, some more tinkering happened in the 70s, and the 1998 Act finally removed all mandatory appellate jurisdiction except for certain cases that are brought directly to a 3-judge federal district court and which are appealed directly to the Supreme Court. This is discussed in Vladeck's book, as a possible source.

Third, there are already some mentions of how other countries have separate constitutional courts and appeal courts, which gives you an idea of where they can be placed. If the comparison is to be made to highlight shortcomings of the United States court, then it should be in the Criticism and Controversies section; it can be their own subsection. If it is simply to be a list of differences... then I am not at all sure it needs to be there. There are of course differences between courts in multiple countries, and a simple catalog of those differences seems both irrelevant and not particularly illuminating (and quite likely to give undue weight by only listing some differences and not others), even if you only compare countries that follow the same legal traditions. Magidin (talk) 16:59, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I support all 3 suggestions by Magidin and currently I do not have a strong preference where to place them. As long as these 3 things are addressed somewhere in the article, interested readers should be able to find them. Shall we go ahead and write these additions? Walter Tau (talk) 15:13, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Why do you insist on putting words in my mouth? Why do you insist on claiming that you are supporting additions and suggestions by others when they did not make such suggestions? If you want to propose something, propose it under your own name instead of pretending you are just supporting what others said, especially when they did no such thing. This is getting tiresome.

I did not make "3 suggestions". At best, I made one: to mention the change in mandatory appellate jurisdiction in the Jurisdiction section. I did not suggest adding comparisons: I said that if comparisons are to be made (a hypothetical I do not support as it happens), then they would have to be in the Criticism and Controversies section and should not be a catalog of differences. That's at best two things. What three things? And, no, you should not "go ahead and add them" (whatever it is you imagine I am proposing to add). Magidin (talk) 16:02, 29 October 2024 (UTC)