The Founding/Decision-Making
This legal model principle, meaning "to stand by things decided," obligates courts to adhere to precedent when deciding cases.
What is stare decisis?
Created by Congress in 1984, this rule allows federal judges to retire with full pay if their age plus years of judicial experience equals at least 80 (with a minimum age of 65).
What is the Rule of 80?
Under this informal practice, at least four Supreme Court justices must agree to accept a case for full review.
What is the Rule of Four?
Known as the "Tenth Justice," this executive branch official decides which cases the U.S. government will appeal and frequently participates in arguments.
Who is the Solicitor General?
If the Chief Justice is in the majority coalition at conference, this individual holds the sole authority to assign who writes the majority opinion.
Who is the Chief Justice?
Developed in 1989 by political scientists, these scores measure a Supreme Court nominee's perceived ideology prior to confirmation by coding newspaper editorials.
What are Segal-Cover scores?
This Senate committee is tasked with conducting hearings and vetting all nominees for the federal judiciary before sending a recommendation to the full Senate.
What is the Senate Judiciary Committee?
Circulation of this agenda document by the Chief Justice determines which petitions will actually be discussed during conference; petitions omitted are automatically denied cert.
What is the discuss list?
Under modern rules set in 1970, each side in a Supreme Court oral argument is typically allocated this exact amount of time to present its case.
What is 30 minutes?
In their study on oral arguments, Johnson, Wahlbeck, and Spriggs (2006) evaluated advocate quality using grades recorded in the private notes of this former justice.
Who is Justice Harry Blackmun?
Popularized by Segal and Spaeth, this decision-making model posits that justices make decisions based purely on their unconstrained personal policy preferences.
What is the attitudinal model?
A president does this to try an increase support for their judicial nominee during a particularly hostile nomination environment.
What is going public?
This interest group strategy involves directly orchestrating litigation on behalf of a specific individual who has legal standing to challenge a statute.
What is initiating a test case?
Translating to "friend of the court," this type of legal brief allows non-litigant interest groups to submit arguments to the Court.
What is an amicus curiae brief?
A justice who agrees with the majority's ultimate judgment but wishes to highlight alternative legal reasoning will write this type of opinion.
What is a concurring opinion?
This landmark 1803 decision formally established the U.S. Supreme Court's power of judicial review over acts of Congress.
What is Marbury v. Madison?
Most of the Court's cases fall under this type of jurisdiction - asking questions of law not facts.
What is appellate jurisdiction?
Formed as an experiment in 1972 to manage workload, this system involves law clerks randomly reading cert petitions and writing summary memos for participating justices.
What is the cert pool?
Corley’s (2008) empirical study revealed that Supreme Court majority opinions borrow approximately 10% of text directly from ______ briefs.
What is litigant?
Empirical research by Jacobi and Schweers (2017) revealed that _____ justices are interrupted during oral arguments more compared to ____ justices.
What is female, male?
Champions of this model, such as Epstein and Knight, argue that justices must account for the preferences and actions of internal colleagues and external political actors when casting votes.
What is the strategic model?
Semi-retirement from the Court in which the justices still serve on a circuit court.
What is senior status?
This internal document prepared by a law clerk summarizes the case briefs and proposes a recommended resolution prior to oral argument.
What is a bench memo?
What are the four main roles that amicus briefs can play in Supreme Court cases?
What is inform the justices, define the issues, frame how the case is perceived, and provide a platform for groups to present their views?
Translating to "by the court," this unsigned collective opinion is typically issued in brief, uncontroversial, or summary decisions.
What is a per curiam opinion?