The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States. It consists of a Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the advice and consent of the Senate. Supreme Court justices make decisions solely on constitutional matters.

Justice O'Connor Introduces Our Courts

Sandra Day O’Connor video interview

Maintaining an Impartial Judiciary

Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told NEA Today she believes "that a fair and impartial judiciary is a critical element of any decent society. One of the things this country has done well is to foster the notion that disputes in our country can be resolved without going to battle - resolved in the courts with a fair and impartial judicial branch. The framers of the Constitution created a federal judiciary to decide issues of federal law: the president makes the appointment, with the advice and the consent of the senate, and the appointments are for life.

All of the states followed suit, until the states began to think we should elect our state court judges. Today, about half of the states have popular election of judges, using advertisements and raising a great deal of money.

So when I retired from the court, there were two things I thought I should do. One was to encourage those states who still elect their judges to go to some kind of appointive system with periodic retention elections based on the performance of the judge, not contested races involving campaign funding. I’ve done everything I can, speaking and writing about the question. The other thing was to do a better job educating young people about the role of the courts and judge. That's why I got some support to develop a Web site for middle-schoolers called Our Courts (now called iCivics).”

Read more from the NEA Today interview with Justice O'Connor in Courting Kids.

• C-SPAN: The Supreme Court - Home to America's Highest Court - This site includes videos of current justices and a tour of the building and an interactive time line of Supreme Court decisions.
• The Oyez Project - A multimedia archive devoted to the U.S. Supreme Court and its work. It has all audio recorded in the Court since October 1955, information on all justices, and a virtual tour of portions of the Supreme Court building. 
• U.S. Courts Educational Outreach - Geared to high school teachers and their students. 
  • Federal Courts in a Nutshell: What Every Citizen Should Know about the Federal Courts - Key concepts and a quiz. From U.S. Courts.
  • Supreme Court Conversation on the Constitution: Jury Service (10 min video) - Justices Breyer, O'Connor, and Kennedy discuss the importance of jury service with high school students. Scroll down this page to view video.
• Historic Supreme Court decisions - By topic. From the Cornell University Law School Web site.
• Summaries of Supreme Court cases - From 1803 to 1998. From the Touro Law Center.
• How Cases Move Through Federal Courts - Follow a criminal case and a civil case from a district court to the highest court, the Supreme Court. The site also has 10 interactive quizzes on materials covered on the site. From the Federal Judicial Center.

Related Links

• Civics Education- Learning about the rights and obligations of citizenship.
• Legislative Branch - Congress, which is divided into the Senate and the House of Representatives.
• Executive Branch - Led by the President of the United States.