Supreme Court of the United States

The **Supreme Court of the United States** is the highest court in the United States of America. Because of this, the Court leads the Judicial Branch of the United States Federal Government. It is the only U.S. court established by the United States Constitution. Its decisions are supposed to be followed by all other courts in the United States. Since 1935, the Court has met in its own building in Washington, D.C.; before that, it met in the United States Capitol.

## Background

There are 9 justices on the court now: one Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices. Courts (a set of all justices of the court while one Chief Justice is serving) are unofficially named for the Chief Justice; the current Court is called the "Roberts Court" after Chief Justice John Roberts.

The Supreme Court chooses which cases it will decide on, by choosing to give a _writ of certiorari_ or not. Almost 7,000 people, known as _petitioners_, ask the Supreme Court to decide their cases every year, but the court only gives a _writ_ to about 100 or less.

For the Supreme Court to decide a case, the case must be about: federal law, the Constitution of the United States, disagreements between states or their residents, or another court's decision that differs from what the Supreme Court has decided on a similar case. Cases _must_ first be decided by a federal district court and a federal court of appeals or by a state supreme court. Even after that, the Supreme Court can choose not to decide a case for any reason. Cases about disagreements between states or their residents sometimes can only be decided by the Supreme Court, but those are rare.

The justices serve for life unless they retire or are impeached. If a justice retires, he or she can still be asked to serve as a judge on a federal Court of Appeals. New justices are _nominated_ (picked) by the President of the United States, and then must be approved by the United States Senate.

The most recent justice to be chosen is Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was nominated by President Joe Biden in February 2022, to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. After the Senate approved her, Jackson became the first female African American justice.

## The current Court

|rowspan=2 colspan=2 style="min-width: 150px /* without these none of the images will display on a mobile device. Given images are 100px width we must ensure the container is at least 100px with some space for the text */"|Justice / birthdate and place|rowspan=2|Appointed by|rowspan=2|<abbr title="U.S. Senate confirmation vote">SCV</abbr>|colspan=2|Age at|rowspan=2|Start date / length of service|rowspan=2 class="unsortable"|Previous position or office|rowspan=2|Replaced|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
||**** Buffalo, New York||78-22|50||style="white-space:nowrap"||Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (2003–2005)|Rehnquist|||||
||**** Pin Point, Georgia||52–48|43|||Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1990–1991)|Marshall||||||
||**** Trenton, New Jersey||58-42|55|||Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1990–2006)|O'Connor||||||
||**** The Bronx, New York||68-31|55|||Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1998–2009)|Souter||||||
||**** Manhattan, New York||63-37|50|||Solicitor General of the United States (2009–2010)|Stevens||||||
||**** Denver, Colorado||54–45|49|||Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (2006–2017)|Scalia||||||
||**** Washington, D.C.||50-48|53|||Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (2006–2018)|Kennedy||||||
||**** New Orleans, Louisiana||52–48|48|||Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (2017–2020)|Ginsburg||||||
||**** Washington, D.C.||53-47|51|||Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (2021–2022)|Breyer||||||

## Living former justices

|rowspan=2 colspan=2|Justice Birthdate and place|rowspan=2|Appointed by|rowspan=2|Retired under|colspan=3|Age at|colspan=3|Tenure|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
||Sacramento, California|||51|82|||||
||Stephen Breyer San Francisco, California|||55|83|||||