Supreme Court Reading

Blog Post #2

 In my reading of HISTORY's  Supreme Court article, I learned a decent amount.  Much of what the article covers was also covered in our class reviews and lessons, but one thing that we didn't cover was the fact that the first meeting of the Supreme Court had to be postponed by a day because some of the justices had transportation issues.  While this isn't a huge detail, I thought it was rather amusing and somewhat grounded this group of people that I always considered to be at least somewhat above the rest of the people. (Image)

While that was amusing, I feel like the biggest takeaway from the article was the absolute power that the Supreme Court has.  Being able to check both the House of Representatives and the President is certainly nothing to shake a stick at, and more often than not this power comes forth in major decisions that have changed the course of this country in incredible ways.  One of the most surprising things I got from the article was the wild variety in the cases mentioned, especially the contrast between restricting Nixon's ability to withhold evidence and denying Texas the right to make anti-sodomy laws. (Image)

The article provided me with a somewhat different view of the Supreme Court, as while I knew on paper what the Supreme Court does, giving context and further background information allowed me to further understand the responsibilities of the Supreme Court.  Much of my knowledge of the Supreme Court revolved around the idea of "checks and balances," but being provided with cases like Mapp v. Ohio and United States v. Windsor gives some necessary frame of reference towards the powers of the Supreme Court.