The Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court is the highest court in all of the United States. Any lower (more local) court can appeal a ruling to the Supreme Court. In other words, it has ultimate, but largely discretionary, appellate jurisdiction over all courts that involve a contest of federal law. The Court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, or are removed after impeachment. The sitting court consists of Chief Justice John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. No replacement has been made to fill the open seat resulting from the death of justice Antonin Scalia on Feb. 13, 2016.
The U.S. Supreme Court
The United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States, in 2010. Top row (left to right): Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Bottom row (left to right): Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Supreme Court is the head the judicial branch, one of the three branches of American government (the other two being the executive branch and legislative branch). Of the three, the Supreme Court is supposed to be politically independent, and thus not wed to either the Democratic or Republican Party. However, the nomination process itself essentially ensures that some partisanship, or allegiance to a political party, appears on the Court. A partisan president nominates a justice and a partisan Senate must confirm a justice. Justices are thus categorized in legal and political circles as being judicial conservatives, moderates, or liberals. Though explicitly not for political motivations, judicial conservatives tend to confirm Republican agendas while judicial liberals tend to support Democratic aims. Ideally, their legal holdings are independent of their political views, though the degree to which this is true in practice is highly contested. The current court tends to lean conservatively in its opinions.
The Supreme Court decides which cases it would like to hear. Allowing a case to come before the court is called granting a writ of certiorari or granting cert. But for a small set of limited exceptions, the Court only hears cases that have already been reviewed by a lower court, meaning that the Supreme Court is a court of appeal. The party that lost the case in the lower court is called the petitioner and the party that won in lower court is called the respondent. The names of all of the cases that come before the court are structured as Petitioner v. Respondent, regardless of which party brought suit in the lower court. After granting cert, lawyers for each party will submit briefs, or written legal arguments, about the issues for the Court to read before oral arguments, or the time when a lawyer from each side will argue his case before all of the justices. After oral arguments, the justices will meet to discuss the case and then issue an opinion, or written statement of their findings, weeks or months later.
Not all justices have to agree on the finding of the court; in fact, they rarely unanimously agree. Instead, the justices will vote on the issues before them and the majority vote will constitute the legal opinion and law of the United States. Because of this voting process, you will frequently see the score for the vote (justices for and against). For example, in the case of Roe v. Wade (1973), the case that established federal abortion law in some instances of pregnancy became law by a vote of 7-2. The opinion will describe the justices' reasons for voting as they did. The part of the opinion that address the majority vote and the new law of the land is called the majority opinion, while the part of the opinion that describes the rationale for the minority voters is called the dissent. One justice can write an opinion to which other justices will sign, though justices will frequently write their own opinion. When a justice that voted with the majority writes his or her own opinion, it is called a concurrence. You will frequently find opinions that contain several concurrences and dissents.