The lists of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States cover the law clerks who have assisted the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States in various capacities since the first one was hired by Justice Horace Gray in 1882. [1] The list is divided into separate lists for each position in the Supreme Court.
Each justice is permitted to have three or four law clerks per Court term. Most clerks are recent law school graduates, who have typically graduated at the top of their class and spent at least one year clerking for a lower federal judge. [2] [3] Among their many functions, clerks do legal research that assists justices in deciding what cases to accept and what questions to ask during oral arguments, prepare memoranda, and draft orders and opinions. [4] Research suggests that clerks exert a moderate influence on how justices vote in cases, but have "substantial influence in cases that are high-profile, legally significant, or close decisions". [5]
The justices as of 2023 [update] with links to their past and present law clerks:
Note that, due to the several changes in the size of the Court since it was established in 1789, two seats have been abolished, both as a result of the Judicial Circuits Act of 1866 (and before the Court established the practice of hiring law clerks). Consequently, neither "seat 5" nor "seat 7" has a list article. Also, the seat numbers in these articles are not derived from official United States federal government sources, but are used as a way of organizing and detailing the succession of justices over the years since the first set of justices were confirmed by the United States Senate.
An associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States is a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, other than the chief justice of the United States. The number of associate justices is eight, as set by the Judiciary Act of 1869.
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on questions of U.S. constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party." The court holds the power of judicial review: the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law.
Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated to the high court by President George W. Bush on October 31, 2005, and has served on it since January 31, 2006. After Antonin Scalia, Alito is the second Italian American justice to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
The demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States encompass the gender, ethnicity, and religious, geographic, and economic backgrounds of the 116 people who have been appointed and confirmed as justices to the Supreme Court. Some of these characteristics have been raised as an issue since the court was established in 1789. For its first 180 years, justices were almost always white male Protestants of Anglo or Northwestern European descent.
The cert pool is a mechanism by which the Supreme Court of the United States manages the influx of petitions for certiorari ("cert") to the court. It was instituted in 1973, as one of the institutional reforms of Chief Justice Warren E. Burger on the suggestion of Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.
The Roberts Court is the time since 2005 during which the Supreme Court of the United States has been led by John Roberts as Chief Justice. Roberts succeeded William Rehnquist as Chief Justice after Rehnquist's death.
The nomination and confirmation of justices to the Supreme Court of the United States involves several steps, the framework for which is set forth in the United States Constitution. Specifically, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, provides that the president of the United States nominates a justice and that the United States Senate provides advice and consent before the person is formally appointed to the Court. It also empowers a president to temporarily, under certain circumstances, fill a Supreme Court vacancy by means of a recess appointment. The Constitution does not set any qualifications for service as a justice, thus the president may nominate any individual to serve on the Court.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down seven per curiam opinions during its 2018 term, which began October 1, 2018, and concluded October 6, 2019.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down ten per curiam opinions during its 2019 term, which began October 7, 2019 and concluded October 4, 2020.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down fourteen per curiam opinions during its 2020 term, which began October 5, 2020 and concluded October 3, 2021.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down eight per curiam opinions during its 2021 term, which began October 4, 2021 and concluded October 2, 2022.
Wooden v. United States, 595 U.S. ___ (2022), was a Supreme Court of the United States case dealing with the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that multiple criminal offenses that a person commits during a single criminal episode do not count as separate convictions when considering the number of prior convictions a criminal has under the ACCA.
National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, 598 U.S. 356 (2023), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the Dormant Commerce Clause.
Moore v. Harper, 600 U.S. 1 (2023), is a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that rejected the independent state legislature theory (ISL), a theory that asserts state legislatures have sole authority to establish election laws for federal elections within their respective states without judicial review by state courts, without presentment to state governors, and without constraint by state constitutions. The case arose from the redistricting of North Carolina's districts by its legislature after the 2020 United States census, which the state courts found to be too artificial and partisan, and an extreme case of gerrymandering in favor of the Republican Party.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down three per curiam opinions during its 2022 term, which began October 3, 2022 and concluded October 1, 2023.
The Supreme Court of the United States has so far handed down one per curiam opinion during its 2023 term, which began October 2, 2023 and will concluded October 6, 2024.