SCOTUS Gears

The following links, requiring a total of a little under 30 minutes of your time, describe the mechanics of the highest court’s operations.

This leg of the United State’s triune government is profoundly different from the other two.

• The court’s members are not elected by the populace. Instead, they are nominated by the sitting President and affirmed by Congress.
• Supreme Court justices serve for life, or until voluntary retirement.
• And perhaps most importantly, they only pay attention to A) what they are requested to consider – their deliberations may be initiated by anyone except themselves – and B) only if they are so inclined.