Judicial Branch

The Judicial branch, consisting of the Supreme Court and a system of lower courts, is one of three branches of the American government laid out by the Constitution to provide a system of Checks and Balances. Its function is described Article III of the US Constitution. Its purpose is to interpret the law (the executive branch carries out the law and the legislative branch makes the laws).

Justices on the Supreme Court are appointed by the president and serve for life. There are nine justices in the Court.

The Judicial branch was thought (wrongly) by the Founders to be the least dangerous branch of our government, because it had the power to interpret the law, not enforce or make it. For this reason, the Constitution is not very specific about the judicial branch.

As aforesaid, the Founders were wrong on this. The Supreme Court is probably the most powerful (and therefore, most dangerous) branch of our government. The idea of judicial review (the power of the Supreme Court to declare a law unconstitutional), implied by the Constitution, but established by the ruling of Chief Justice John Marshall in the famous case Marbury v. Madison, established the Supreme Court's power. In this case, Justice Marshall declared that the Supreme Court could overrule any law passed by Congress that wasn't Constitutional.

While this decision provided that the Supreme Court keeps the other two branches in check (and very effectively), there are next to no checks on the Supreme Court, except for impeachment. Impeachment can theoretically be used, but has not since the failed impeachment of Samuel Chase, an early activist judge. This is why the five majority on the court of nine are said to be the five most powerful people in the United States.

The words written on the entrance of the Supreme Court building summarize the purpose of the judicial branch: "Equal justice under law."

Resources

A History of the US; Book 4; The New Nation by Joy Hakim

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/constitutional.pdf

U.S. Government and Politics by Paul Soifer