Our next section looks at the Supreme Court and the protection of rights and liberties.
The key questions you need to be able to answer are:
- What is the structure of the federal courts in the USA?
- What is the membership of the Supreme Court?
- How does the appointment process work?
- What is the power of judicial review?
- What have been the recent landmark decisions of the Supreme Court?
- How might the Roberts Court differ from the Rehnquist Court?
- What checks exist on the Court's power?
- Is the Court now the 'Roberts Court'?
Resources
- The place to start for electronic sources on the US Supreme Court is the Court's own website. The 'About the Supreme Court' button is the best one to use from the home page. You can also research Supreme Court decisions by going to the button marked 'Opinions' but be aware that these are the actual opinions and hence highly detailed and not easy for the layperson/student to readily understand.
- There is also Scot's US blog which has some impressive but very accessible statistics on each recent term of the Court. For each case it has a short paragraph entitled 'Plain English' with a brief explanation of the case in 'plain English.'
- There is also a website from Cornell University in the States, , which gives a brief commentary on Supreme Court decisions, and which makes them much easier to follow than the full opinion.
- This useful government site gives clear explanations of the Court's procedure as well as simulations of Court decision making.
- More widely on the federal judiciary, the website of the Federal Judicial Center is quite helpful at .
- Media sites such as the Washington Post and New York Times give regular reports on matters relating to the Supreme Court.
- The website of the Senate Judiciary Committee will have details of any judicial confirmation hearings that may take place.
You may also want to consult websites relating to some of the specific rights and liberties discussed in the Constitution. These include:
www.aclu.org
www.freespeechcoalition.com
www.nra.org
www.bradycenter.org
www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
www.naacp.org
www.affirmativereaction.org
www.nrlc.org
www.plannedparenthood.org
www.now
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