How many justices are on the supreme court

How Many Supreme Court Justices Are There?

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There are nine members of the Supreme Court, and that number has gone unchanged since 1869. The number and length of the appointments are set by statute, and the U.S. Congress has the ability to change that number. In the past, changing that number was one of the tools that members of Congress used to rein in a president they didn’t like.

Essentially, in the absence of legislated changes to the size and structure of the Supreme Court, appointments are made by the president as justices resign, retire, or pass away. Some presidents have nominated several justices: the first President George Washington nominated 11, Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated 9 over his four terms in office, and William Howard Taft nominated 6. Each of those was able to name a chief justice. Some presidents (William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson, and Jimmy Carter), did not get an opportunity to make a single nomination.

Establishing the Supreme Court

The first judiciary act was passed in 1789 when the Supreme Court itself was set up, and it established six as the number of members. In the earliest court structure, the number of justices corresponded to the number of judicial circuits. The Judiciary Act of 1789 established three circuit courts for the new United States, and each circuit would be manned by two Supreme Court judges who would ride the circuit for part of the year, and be based in the then-capital of Philadelphia the rest of the time.

After Thomas Jefferson won the controversial election of 1800, the lame-duck Federalist Congress didn’t want him to be able to select a new judicial appointment. They passed a new Judiciary Act, reducing the court to five after the next vacancy. The following year, Congress repealed that Federalist bill and returned the number to six.

Over the next century and a half, as circuits were added without much discussion, so were Supreme Court members. In 1807, the number of circuit courts and justices was set at seven; in 1837, nine; and in 1863, the 10th circuit court was added for California and the number of both circuits and justices became 10.

Reconstruction and Establishment of Nine

In 1866, the Republican Congress passed an act reducing the Court’s size from 10 to seven in order to curtail President Andrew Johnson’s ability to appoint justices. After Lincoln ended the system of enslavement and was assassinated, his successor Andrew Johnson nominated Henry Stanbery to succeed John Catron on the court. In his first year of office, Johnson implemented a plan of Reconstruction that gave the White South a free hand in regulating the transition to freedom and offered Black people no role in the politics of the south: Stanbery would have supported Johnson’s implementation.

Congress didn’t want Johnson to wreck the progress of civil rights that had been set in motion; and so instead of confirming or rejecting Stanbery, Congress enacted legislation that eliminated Catron’s position, and called for the eventual reduction of the Supreme Court to seven members.

The Judiciary Act of 1869, when Republican U.S. Grant was in office, increased the number of justices from seven to nine, and it has remained there ever since. It also appointed a circuit court justice: the Supremes only had to ride circuit once over two years. The Judiciary Act of 1891 didn’t change the number of justices, but it did create a court of appeals in each circuit, so the Supremes no longer had to leave Washington.

Franklin Roosevelt’s Packing Plan

In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt submitted a reorganization plan to Congress that would allow the Court to meet the problems of «insufficient personnel» and superannuated justices. In the «Packing Plan» as it was known by his opponents, Roosevelt suggested that there should be an additional justice appointed for every sitting one over the age of 70.

Roosevelt’s suggestion arose from his frustration that his attempts at establishing a full New Deal program were being stymied by the Court. Even though Congress had a majority of Democrats at the time, the plan was resoundingly defeated in Congress (70 against, 20 for), because they said it «undermined the independence of the Court(s) in violation of the Constitution.»

Why Do 9 Justices Serve on the Supreme Court?

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The Constitution doesn’t specify how many justices should serve on the Court—in fact, that number fluctuated until 1869.

Only since 1869 have there consistently been nine justices appointed to the Supreme Court. Before that, Congress routinely changed the number of justices to achieve its own partisan political goals, resulting in as few as five Supreme Court justices required by law under John Adams to as many as 10 under Abraham Lincoln.

The U.S. Constitution is silent about how many justices should sit on the Supreme Court. In fact, the office of Chief Justice only exists because it’s mentioned in the Constitution under Senate rules for impeachment proceedings (“When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside. ”).

It’s Congress, not the Constitution, that decides the size of the Supreme Court, which it did for the first time under the Judiciary Act of 1789. When George Washington signed the Act into law, he set the number of Supreme Court justices at six.

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Split Decisions Were Less of a Concern

Why six? Because Supreme Court justices in those days were also appointed to sit on federal circuit courts, of which there were 13 in 1789. Each circuit court would be presided over by three judges: one district court judge from the state and two Supreme Court justices.

“The justices had to spend almost the entire year traveling,” says Maeva Marcus, a research professor at the George Washington University Law School and director of its Institute for Constitutional History. “And the traveling conditions were horrendous.”

To limit the geographical area traveled by the justices, the Judiciary Act of 1789 divided the circuit courts into three regions: Eastern, Middle and Southern. The reason that the first Supreme Court had six justices was simple—so that two of them could preside in each of the three regions.

Marcus said that no one at the time quibbled about the fact that six is an even number, which leaves open the possibility of 3-3 split decisions.

“They never even thought about it, because all the judges were Federalists and they didn’t foresee great disagreement,” says Marcus. “Plus, you didn’t always have all six justices appearing at the Supreme Court for health and travel reasons.”

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Adams Shrunk the Court to Snub Jefferson

The Federalist’s grip on power didn’t last, however, prompting the very first political controversy over Supreme Court nominations. In 1800, incumbent John Adams, a Federalist, lost the presidential election to Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans.

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In those days, the post-election “lame duck” session of Congress lasted until the following March, says Marcus, and Adams and his Federalists in Congress wanted to do everything in their power to deny Jefferson a Supreme Court pick.

While there’s a lot of controversy today around replacing a Supreme Court justice in an election year, Adams had no such qualms. In 1800, a month before the presidential election, Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth resigned from the Court because of illness. Adams nominated and Congress confirmed Ellsworth’s successor, John Marshall, on February 4, 1801 during the lame duck session of Congress.

Adams and the Federalists then went a step further. They passed the Judiciary Act of 1801 which decreased the number of Supreme Court justices from six to five, further lowering the odds that Jefferson would get to nominate a new justice during his term in office.

In response, Jefferson and his new Congress quickly repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801, bringing the number of justices officially back to six. And since no justice had died in the interim, the number of seated justices never actually dropped to five.

During Civil War, the Justice Count Changed Every Few Years

By the start of the Civil War, the number of Supreme Court justices had increased to nine in order to cover additional circuit courts in the expanding American West. But Abraham Lincoln, upset over the Supreme Court’s 1857 decision in Dred Scott and wanting to cement an anti-slavery majority on the Court, added a 10th justice in 1863.

After the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination, Congress clashed with Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, who was rapidly undoing the “Radical Republicans’” plan for Reconstruction. To limit Johnson’s power, Congress passed legislation in 1866 that cut the number of Supreme Court justices back to seven, all but assuring that Johnson wouldn’t have the opportunity to fill a vacant seat.

The last time Congress changed the number of Supreme Court justices was in 1869, again to meet a political end. Ulysses S. Grant was elected president in 1868 with the backing of the congressional Republicans who had hated Johnson. As a gift to Grant, Congress increased the number of justices from seven back to nine, and Grant gamely used those picks.

The Supreme Court had just ruled that paper money was unconstitutional, which would have “wreaked havoc” with the U.S. Treasury, says Marcus. But Grant and Congress quickly confirmed two new justices who reversed the Court’s decision in the earlier case, saving the Republicans from having to undo the nation’s entire system of legal tender.

FDR Tried to ‘Pack the Court’ with 15 Justices

Cartoon of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1937 Supreme Court packing plan and opposition to it, illustrated by J.N. «Ding» Darling.

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In the 1930s, the Supreme Court issued a series of rulings that undercut some of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation. FDR and his Justice Department responded with a proposed bill that would have allowed him to name six new Supreme Court justices to reach a grand total of 15.

Under the proposed legislation, all sitting justices older than 70 would be asked to resign. If any of them refused, FDR would be allowed to nominate an additional justice to the bench. Since six of the nine justices at the time were older than 70, that created the possibility of six new seats on the Supreme Court.

FDR’s plan, decried as “packing the court” with his political supporters, was shot down in the Senate by a vote of 70-20.

Why the Supreme Court ended up with nine justices—and how that could change

The U.S. Supreme Court changed size seven times in its first 80 years, from as few as five justices to as many as 10. Now, some argue it’s time to revisit the issue.

Nine justices make up the U.S. Supreme Court: one chief justice and eight associate justices. But it hasn’t always been this way. For the first 80 years of its existence, the Supreme Court fluctuated in size from as few as five to as many as 10 before settling at the current number in 1869. Here’s how the court ended up with nine justices—and how that could change.

Constitutional foundations

When the Founding Fathers set out to establish the U.S. Supreme Court at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, they kept the details vague. There are no constitutional requirements for age, experience, or citizenship of Supreme Court justices, nor did the Constitution establish how many justices would make up the court. Instead, it left many of the details up to Congress and the president. (Here’s why filling a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year is so complicated.)

The first chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay, was joined by only five collegues during his tenure from 1789 to 1795.

Two years later, the first Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789—signed into law by George Washington on September 24, 1789—which established a court of six justices responsible for ensuring the constitutionality of laws enacted by the executive and legislative branches.

The law placed the Supreme Court at the top of a three-tier federal court system. At the lowest level, each state would have a federal judge presiding over district courts hearing minor cases related to federal laws as well as maritime cases. Those districts were then organized into three geographical regions with circuit courts that would both serve as trial courts and hear appeals.

Rather than create judgeships for each circuit court, though, Congress stipulated that two Supreme Court justices and one local district court judge would sit on circuit court panels. Each of the six justices was assigned a geographical circuit and required to preside over their circuit courts twice a year, meaning they were on the road for much of the year.

Partisan squabbles

It didn’t take long for the make-up of the courts to become a partisan issue. In 1801, Federalist party members in Congress sought to expand federal jurisdiction over the states by reorganizing the court system. Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, creating new judgeships to serve six judicial circuits and reducing the Supreme Court from six seats to five. In so doing, the law also eliminated the practice of “riding circuit,” the cross-country travel which the Supreme Court justices detested.

Federalist John Adams, the second president of the United States, signed the bill into law on February 13, 1801. But the signing came just after he had lost his reelection campaign to political rival Thomas Jefferson, and the move was seen as an attempt to limit his successor’s appointments to the court. Jefferson quickly repealed the bill when he took office before any changes to the court’s composition could take effect. Since Supreme Court seats are lifetime appointments, the law had not removed any justices from the court but simply stipulated that the next vacant seat would not be replaced.

With the repeal, the six Supreme Court justices resumed their circuit riding duties. This time, rather than assign the justices to circuits, Jeffersonian Republicans instructed the six Supreme Court justices to allot themselves to the circuits “as they shall think fit.”

Westward expansion

During the next 70 years, the link between the Supreme Court justices and the circuit courts became the justification for the court’s fluctuating numbers. As the U.S. expanded westward—creating new judicial districts and circuits along the way—it needed more Supreme Court justices to preside over these circuit courts.

In 1807, the western districts of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee lay outside of the established federal court system as they were difficult to reach across the Appalachian Mountains. District courts took on much of the circuit court’s duties instead. But as the volume of their cases increased, they pleaded with Congress to be reorganized into the existing federal judicial structure.

In response, Congress created the Seventh Circuit in 1807 and added a seat on the Supreme Court to match. The law also required that the new justice reside within the district to make the travel less arduous—a residency requirement that was never applied to another Supreme Court seat.

During Chief Justice John Marshall’s time in the Supreme Court starting in 1801, the bench shrunk from six to five Justices, then expanded back to six and finally seven in 1807. Two years after his death in 1835, another two justices were added to bring the total to nine.

Thirty years later, in 1837, the admission of eight new western states to the union prompted Congress and President Andrew Jackson to add two more circuit courts—and two more justices, for a new total of nine, who would now be required to make even longer trips over difficult terrain to preside over the circuits.

Civil War

For the next couple of decades, the Supreme Court remained relatively stable. But then the Civil War arrived. In the early 1860s, Abraham Lincoln—who had sharply disagreed with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford that Black people were not and could not become U.S. citizens—sought to reshape the court alongside his fellow Republicans in Congress. In 1863, an influx of settlers in California gave them an excuse to add a 10th circuit court and therefore a 10th Supreme Court justice.

Stephen Johnson Field was one of five Supreme Court justices appointed by President Abraham Lincoln.

After the Civil War ended, however, Congress once again changed the judicial system. In 1866, after Lincoln was assassinated and his vice president Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat, took over, Republicans in Congress worried about Johnson’s potential to influence the Supreme Court. At the time, Southern states were attempting to restrict the freedoms of newly-freed slaves with a rash of “Black codes” that prevented them from voting and limited the types of jobs they could hold. Johnson had also recently vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which would have placed a check on those states by granting citizenship and full protection under the law to all people born in the U.S.

Though Congressional Republicans were able to override Johnson’s veto, they wanted to prevent him from tipping the Supreme Court in favor of the Southern states. They passed the Judicial Circuits Act, reducing the Supreme Court back to seven justices again.

But in 1869, the Republicans were back in control when Ulysses S. Grant assumed the presidency. They passed a new judiciary act that set the number of justices back to nine and required six justices present to form a quorum on decisions. Subsequent laws reduced the burden of circuit riding on the justices and, in 1911, ended the practice completely, severing the direct tie between the circuit courts and the number of Supreme Court justices.

Court packing

Since then, the Supreme Court has remained stable with nine justices serving on the bench. But that doesn’t mean politicians haven’t tried to change things up. Most famously, in the late 1930s, Franklin D. Roosevelt grew frustrated as the Supreme Court began striking down the New Deal laws he’d crafted to end the Great Depression. In February 1937, he floated the idea of increasing the membership of the Supreme Court to 15 justices.

The idea was wildly unpopular—even among Roosevelt’s supporters. It was described as “court packing,” an attempt to sway the court in his favor by creating new seats filled by justices he would be able to appoint and would thus likely be sympathetic to his policies. The Senate Judiciary Committee decried the president’s reform bill as “an invasion of judicial power such as has never before been attempted in this country.” Ultimately, the Senate voted against the plan 70-20.

Modern Supreme Court fights

The longstanding political tradition of reshaping the court has not died. In recent years, as President Donald Trump and a Republican-led Senate have overseen a shift in the U.S. Supreme Court’s political balance from moderate to conservative, liberals have begun arguing for a new expansion of the court.

This shift started in 2016 with the death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia. At the time, the court was split ideologically and, hoping to keep their conservative seat and prevent a liberal tilt to the court, Congressional Republicans refused to vote on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the court on the grounds that it was a presidential election year. Scalia’s seat remained vacant for nearly a year until Trump won the election and nominated Neil Gorsuch, who was seated in 2017. Though this appointment technically maintained the court’s ideological status quo, it laid the groundwork for the shift that came in 2018 with the retirement of Anthony Kennedy, a moderate who often had a swing vote on the court. Trump replaced Kennedy with associate justice Brett Kavanagh, a reliable conservative, shifting the court’s ideology further to the right.

Liberals fear that a conservative court will reverse several landmark decisions, including Roe v. Wade, which protects women’s right to abortion, and Obergefell v. Hodges, which recognizes same-sex marriage. It could also dismantle the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health care legislation, as well as protections for immigrants. In recent years, the Supreme Court often split 5-4, meaning that even a slight shift in the court’s ideology could fundamentally shift the way it approaches these cases.

In 2019, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, then mayor of South Bend, Indiana, advocated for expanding the Supreme Court back to 15 justices with an aim to depoliticize it. According to his plan, five justices would be affiliated with Democrats, five with Republicans, and five would be apolitical and chosen by their colleagues.

On September 18, the death of associate justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon who served on the court for 27 years, added to Democrats’ fears, as losing her seat would make the court even more ideologically conservative. Some prominent Democrats—including Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey—have stated that they would seek to expand or reform the Supreme Court if Ginsburg is replaced with a Trump nominee.

Democrats have offered several proposals for reshaping the Supreme Court. Some support Buttigieg’s plan to expand the court to 15 ideologically balanced judges, while others argue for a more partisan plan that would add two new seats on the court during the next Democratic presidency to counter the appointments of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Still others suggest imposing term limits on justices, arguing that more frequent turnover will reduce the intensity of the battles over each Supreme Court vacancy.

But the fate of these proposals remains unclear. Not only do they rely on Democrats winning majorities in Congress and retaking the White House in the elections this November, but as Roosevelt learned in the 1930s, sweeping changes to the court system require public support. In 2019, a Marquette University Law School national survey found that 57 percent of Americans oppose increasing the number of justices on the court—although 72 percent are in favor of imposing term limits. It remains to be seen whether support will rise for these measures in the wake of Ginsburg’s death.

How Many Justices Are On The US Supreme Court?

Supreme Court! As the name suggests it is the highest legal system of a nation responsible for the issuing of the federal law of the country as well as to review the decisions of cases taken by the lower courts.

Since the Supreme Court is of the highest authorities of a nation, therefore highly competent, experienced and qualified people are needed to undertake the responsibilities of providing the most suitable decisions which the body for whom the decisions have been made would consider fair and just. It is really important for everyone to learn about the judicial systems of their country. Let’s take a look at how many justices are on the Supreme Court.

Supreme court of US:

The supreme court of the United States is abbreviated as SCOTUS, which is the highest legal authority (federal system) of the US. Since it has the supreme tag to it, therefore it has a control over the lower courts (Appellate jurisdiction) and can review and alter the decisions made previously by the lower courts. SCOTUS also takes care of laying down the federal laws of state court cases and can give a hearing to a case for the first time and later can review it in the first session.

Supreme Court is not just a building being tagged as “supreme”. It is an association of people who are responsible to undertake its obligations. In this post we’ll increase your awareness about how many justices are on the Supreme Court.

How many justices are on the supreme court now:

Under this category we will be giving you a detailed description, on the present justices of the United States of America.

Let’s start with the most important authority of the Supreme Court –

1> The Chief justice of the United States, John G. Roberts.

2> Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice:

3> Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice:

4> Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice:

5> Samuel Anthony Alito Jr, associate judge:

6> Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice:

7> Elena Kagan, Associate Justice:

Some Facts About USA Supreme Court:

Supreme Court Justices Quizlet:

In order to understand the USA jurisdiction system allow us to indulge you in a short quiz:

1> Number of people make up the Supreme Court?

2> Main duty of the Supreme Court?

3> Chief Justice of the US?

4> Associate Justices?

5> The first case and what did it establish?

6> What is meant by Judicial Review?

7> First woman justice of Supreme court

Supreme Court is not doubt a house full of astute and wise people, after all justice isn’t something to be taken heedlessly!

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Smart conversation from the National Constitution Center

Why does the Supreme Court have nine Justices?

July 6, 2018 by NCC Staff

Next Monday night, President Donald Trump will announce his nominee to replace Anthony Kennedy as the Supreme Court’s ninth Justice. So why are there nine seats on the Court, and who set that precedent?

In this area, the Constitution allows for Congress to decide on how many Justices sit on the Supreme Court’s bench. Article III, Section 1, starts with a broad direction to Congress to establish courts. “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish,” it reads.

The Judiciary Act of 1789 established the first Supreme Court, with six Justices. “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the supreme court of the United States shall consist of a chief justice and five associate justices, any four of whom shall be a quorum, and shall hold annually at the seat of government two sessions, the one commencing the first Monday of February, and the other the first Monday of August,” the act read.

Since 1789, Congress changed the maximum number of Justices on the Court several times. In 1801, President John Adams and a lame-duck Federalist Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which reduced the Court to five Justices in an attempt to limit incoming President Thomas Jefferson’s appointments to the high bench. Jefferson and his Republicans soon repealed that act, putting the Court back to six Justices. And in 1807, Jefferson and Congress added a seventh Justice when it added a seventh federal court circuit.

In early 1837, President Andrew Jackson was able to add two additional Justices after Congress again expanded the number of federal circuit court districts. Under different circumstances, Congress created a 10 th circuit in 1863 during the Civil War, and it briefly had a 10 th Supreme Court Justice. However, Congress after the war passed legislation in 1866 to reduce the Court to seven Justices. That only lasted until 1869, when a new Judiciary Act sponsored by Senator Lyman Trumbull set the number back to nine Justices, with six Justices required at a sitting to form a quorum. President Ulysses S. Grant eventually signed that legislation and nominated William Strong and Joseph Bradley to the newly restored seats.

Since then, aside from President Franklin Roosevelt’s ill-fated threat to support an effort to add new Justices (who sympathized with his policies) to the Supreme Court, the number of Justices on the Court has remained stable. In 1937, Roosevelt had won a second term in office, but the makeup of a conservative-leaning Supreme Court hadn’t changed since he took office four years earlier. Roosevelt supported a Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 to add as many as six new Justices.

The legislation struggled to gain traction, and it was opposed not only by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes but also by the liberal Justice Louis Brandeis. Soon, changing voting patterns on the Court along with vacancies made the Court Packing plan a moot point.

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