The Supreme Court of the United States

Before watching these videos, I had a decent amount of knowledge about the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), but I did learn more. The Supreme Court is one of the most important institutions in the country and one of the most powerful institutions in the world. Its main role in the government is to interpret the United States Constitution to determine whether certain laws are constitutional. This role, known as Judicial Review, was given to the Supreme Court by the Marbury v. Madison case of 1803. This is the most important takeaway about the Supreme Court to me, as it is what gives the Court the power that it retains today. Additionally, it was surprising to me that the Supreme Court is asked to hear so many cases every year – the video said around 7,000. Thankfully, because 7,000 would take many years to hear, Certiorari grants the Supreme Court the power to reject/accept whichever cases it desires.

Through this set of videos, I learned that opinion writing is what takes up most of the Supreme Court's time. I had never really thought of this, but in hindsight, it makes sense, as the judges all have to carefully think out what they want to write down in their opinion, and how they want to write it.

It was very interesting to me to see how the every justice on the court got along so well in the videos. This seems very contrary to how polarized the mainstream media paints every governmental institution as being. Overall, these videos helped me to learn more about the Supreme Court and its methods and functions. They helped me recognize the fact that if I, someone who considered myself fairly knowledgeable about the court, learned from the videos, so many people who aren't knowledgeable have much to gain from watching.