| The 2008 term of the Supreme Court of the United States began October 6, 2008, and concluded October 4, 2009. This was the fourth term of Chief Justice John Roberts's tenure on the Court. |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The 2008 term of the Supreme Court of the United States began October 6, 2008, and concluded October 4, 2009. This was the fourth term of Chief Justice John Roberts's tenure on the Court. | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States of America. It has ultimate and largely discretionary appellate jurisdiction over all federal and state court cases that involve a point of federal law, and 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. However, it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction. The Court may decide cases having political overtones but has ruled that it does not have power to decide non-justiciable political questions.
Sandra Day O'Connor is an American retired attorney and politician who served as the first female associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. She was the first woman nominated and, subsequently, the first woman confirmed. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, she was considered the swing vote for the Rehnquist Court and the first few months of the Roberts Court.
This page serves as an index of lists of United States Supreme Court cases. The United States Supreme Court is the highest federal court of the United States.
John Paul Stevens was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from 1975 to 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the second-oldest justice in the history of the Court and the third-longest-serving justice. At the time of his death, he was the longest lived Supreme Court justice ever. His long tenure saw him write for the Court on most issues of American law, including civil liberties, the death penalty, government action and intellectual property. In cases involving presidents of the United States, he wrote for the court that they were to be held accountable under American law. A registered Republican when appointed who throughout his life identified as a conservative, Stevens was considered to have been on the liberal side of the Court at the time of his retirement.
William Francis Murphy was an American Democratic politician and jurist from Michigan. He was named to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1940 after a political career that included serving as United States Attorney General, Governor of Michigan and Mayor of Detroit. He also served as the last Governor General of the Philippine Islands and the first High Commissioner of the Philippines.
Joseph McKenna was an American politician who served in all three branches of the U.S. federal government, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, as U.S. Attorney General and as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. He is one of seventeen members of the House of Representatives who subsequently served on the Supreme Court.
David Josiah Brewer was an American attorney and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States for 20 years.
John Glover Roberts Jr. is an American lawyer and jurist serving as the 17th chief justice of the United States since 2005. Roberts has authored the majority opinion in several landmark cases, including Shelby County v. Holder, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, King v. Burwell, Department of Commerce v. New York, and Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California. He has been described as having a conservative judicial philosophy but has shown a willingness to work with the Supreme Court's liberal bloc, and since the retirement of Anthony Kennedy in 2018 has come to be regarded as a swing vote on the Court. Roberts presided over the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump in early 2020; however, he declined to preside over the second impeachment trial of Trump, who was impeached as president, but whose term had expired by the time of the trial.
Elena Kagan is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 10, 2010, and has served since August 7, 2010. Kagan is the fourth woman to become a member of the Court.
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, unconnected with service in a militia, for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, and that the District of Columbia's handgun ban and requirement that lawfully owned rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock" violated this guarantee. It also stated that the right to bear arms is not unlimited and that guns and gun ownership would continue to be regulated. It was the first Supreme Court case to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense or if the right was intended for state militias.
The 2007 term of the Supreme Court of the United States began October 1, 2007, and concluded September 30, 2008. The table illustrates which opinion was filed by each justice in each case and which justices joined each opinion.
The 2008 term of the Supreme Court of the United States began October 6, 2008, and concluded October 4, 2009. The table illustrates which opinion was filed by each justice in each case and which justices joined each opinion.
Anthony McLeod Kennedy is an American retired lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He was nominated to the court in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan, and sworn in on February 18, 1988. After the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor in 2006, he was the swing vote on many of the Roberts Court's 5–4 decisions.
Clarence Thomas is an American lawyer who serves as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall, and has served since 1991. Thomas is the second African-American to serve on the Court, after Marshall. Since 2018, Thomas has been the senior associate justice, the longest-serving member of the Court, with a tenure of 30 years, 147 days as of March 19, 2022.
