Supreme Court - Essay Example

Supreme Court Opinions The principle responsibility of the U.S. Supreme Court is to interpret the Constitution. It has thefinal say in settling legal arguments and determining the meaning of laws thereby setting national policy. The Justices write majority and minority opinions following a decision. These fall into four categories, unanimous, divided, very divided and per curium.
Unanimous decisions are written when all nine members of the court vote the same way. The Chief Justice (John Roberts) assigns any Justice the task of writing it or may choose himself. Sometimes, if the case has many nuances involved, he may have opinions from two Justices. In this case the opinions are called concurring.
Divided decisions are more common. If from one to four Justices dissent on the majority decision, the Chief Justice will assign a majority opinion that speaks for the consensus of the Court. In addition, a minority opinion will be assigned to one of the Justices who voted against the majority, termed the dissenting opinion. This Justice explains the reason they and possibly other dissenters saw legal reason to vote against the majority.
In a very divided decision those Justices who voted with the majority did not agree as to why. In addition, those who voted with the minority didn’t agree with each other either. In this very rare instance, multiple Justices may write separate opinions, possibly all nine. Some may write additions to other opinions if their view of the legalities concerning the case was close but not the same.
In a per curium decision the opinion(s) may be unanimous and are usually very short in length. These are the cases that either was not important enough to be heard by the highest court or a technical issue precluded the Justices from hearing the case. Read More