Supreme Court Influence

The Powers and Influences of the Supreme Court Founding father Alexander Hamilton once stated that he believed that the Judicial Branch would be the weak link of the three government branches. However, the branch is much more powerful than Hamilton could have ever expected. The Supreme Court has a lot of power, including judicial review that helps them be empowered when it comes to checks and balances. They also have the ability to grant a writ of certiorari to have cases sent up for a review. A flaw however is that the justices of the Supreme Court can be influenced by both stare decisis and judicial activism. This creates a form of bias when this happens, as it tends to affect how they respond to some cases. Judicial review empowers the Supreme Court through checks and balances easily. Checks and balances deal with regulating problems so the power does not go to one section and is instead spread out as evenly as possible. Judicial review is that the court has the right to declare laws unconstitutional. This means that they can declare laws unjust and make it so they are no longer an issue. When it is put next to checks and balances, it certainly empowers the court. When the court declares a law unconstitutional, it has now regulated the power that that law had over the country. Since the Supreme Court is able to declare a law unconstitutional with judicial review, the Supreme Court is heavily empowered when it comes to the system of checks and balances. The Supreme Court is able to grant a writ of certiorari; an order by a higher court, like the Supreme Court, that can direct a lower court to send a case to the higher court for a review. They will consider every petition they receive that tells them to review lower court case decisions. The Supreme Court will reserve time for federal cases decided by a lower federal court or by the highest state court where a federal or constitutional question has been raised. Once four justices agree to hearing the case, the writ of certiorari is granted. However, they only grant the writ of certiorari when one or both of these things happen: two or more federal circuit courts of appeals have concluded on the same issue in different ways or the highest court in state held a federal or state law to be in violation of the Constitution, or if they have held the law up against the claim that it is a violation of the constitution. Once …show more content…
The Court has a lot of power when it comes to checks and balances since they can declare laws unconstitutional. They also grant a writ of certiorari to courts when they want lower court to send them a case for review, which has quite a few steps to it including four justices agreeing to hear the case. Despite the powers of the Supreme Court though, they can also be influenced by stare decisis and judicial activism. These influences can be good or bad, depending on the situation. It could benefit the current cases the justices deal with, but it could also hurt the case as it could go against the case and make the justices rule against it. The Supreme Court and the Judicial Branch in general have a lot more power in the government than the founding father Alexander Hamilton