The Judicial Branch and The Supreme Court
(Lecture Notes from Mr. Kersey's 8th Grade U.S. History Class)Much of the content here is taken directly from Ben's Guide to Government for Kids. This is an absolutely great resource for students.
The Judicial Branch
- The Judicial Branch was established in Article III of the Constitution with the creation of the Supreme Court.
- The Supreme Court is the highest court in the country.
- There are other lower Federal Courts, but these were made by Congress.
The Function of Courts
- Courts decide a few things. They decide…
- The meaning of laws
- How a law should be applied
- And whether or not a law violates the Constitution
- The power of a court to decide constitutionality is called the power of judicial review.
The Supreme Court
- The Supreme Court is the highest court.
- Its decisions are final and can only be reversed by another Supreme Court decision or by amending the Constitution.
- The cases the Court hears have worked their up through the lower federal courts.
- The court gets sent a lot of cases, but only hears about 80 – 100 cases per year.
- There are nine justices on the Supreme Court.
- One of these justices is the Chief Justice.
- Justices have their job for life.
- To be replaced they must either die, retire, or be removed through impeachment and conviction.
