Comm3390 Supreme Court - Reflection

 Comm3390 Supreme Court - Reflection

What did I learn about the supreme court that I didn't already know? From the set of two videos I learned about how the oral argument process actually works. A lawyer comes up before the court and argues their opinion to all nine justices at the same time. I also learned that to the justices the oral argumentation process is almost like a conversation between themselves, where they'll sometimes use their questioning as a way to communicate with each other. I found that very interesting.

What is the most important takeaway point about the supreme court? To me the most important takeaway was how important the opinion is. I've always thought of supreme court decisions as a binary "yay" or "nay," in terms of how a precedent is set, but actually its much more complex than that. A large amount of the precedent setting of a supreme court case comes from the written opinion at the end, because that opinion is now the interpretation of the law. If someone wants to make an argument using a supreme court case precedent, how they use that will be based off of the opinion.

What is the most surprising thing I learned? The most surprising thing I learned was how much work goes into writing the opinion. I've always thought of the opinion as more of an afterthought or just a justification/explanation, but it's actually the most time consuming part of being a supreme court justice. These opinions can be up to eighty pages long, that is really surprising to me that they have that much to say about a case.

How did the video change how I view the supreme court? I've always viewed supreme court justices as busy, since they have to be constantly reviewing cases to determine which ones they actually want to take, but it goes so much further than I thought. On top of that they also have to write opinions, which can take weeks, make oral arguments, and have the discussions afterwards. I wonder how many hours a week they work and when they get time off.