Blog Post #2: Supreme Court Reflection

 

Outside of the Supreme Court 

After watching this video about the U.S. Supreme Court, I realized there were several things I did not know before. One of the biggest surprises was learning that there have only been a little over 100 Supreme Court justices in the entire history of the Court. When I thought about how long the country has existed, that number seemed much smaller than I expected.

I also learned that presidents are responsible for nominating Supreme Court justices. I had heard about appointments before, but I did not fully understand the president's role in the process. It helped me understand how new justices are selected and why their appointments often receive so much attention.

One quote from the video stood out to me. A justice described being chosen for the Supreme Court as being "akin to being struck by lightning." I thought that was a powerful way to explain how rare and unusual the opportunity is.  

Supreme Court Justices 

Another interesting fact was learning that John Marshall was the first Chief Justice. I had heard his name before, but I did not know his place in the Court's history.

The video also discussed the Fourteenth Amendment, and I found it interesting that it was described as being like a second Bill of Rights. That comparison made me think differently about the importance of constitutional amendments and how they affect citizens' rights.

The statistic that surprised me the most was the number of cases the Court receives each year. I was shocked to learn that more than 7,000 cases are submitted to the Supreme Court annually. Even more surprising was the fact that the Court only accepts about 100 of those cases for review.

I was also interested to learn that cases are sent to the justices once each week. Before watching the video, I had never thought much about how the Court organizes and reviews its workload. 

Overall, the video changed the way I think about the Supreme Court. I used to see it as a distant institution, but now I better understand how selective it is, how influential its justices are, and how much work goes into deciding which cases are heard.

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AI DISCLOSURE: this post was a collaboration using Microsoft Copilot. I took detailed notes while watching a 20-minute video about the history of the Supreme Court. In addition to facts that I learned, I emphasized my own reactions and opinions while watching. I then asked Copilot to help me improve the text by correcting grammar, spelling, punctuation. I then asked Copilot to shape the text into a blog post format. After reviewing the text, I added links to related resources, as well as appropriate images and captions. 

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