Associate Justice of The Supreme Court of The United States

Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States

Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are the members of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the Chief Justice of the United States. The number of Associate Justices is determined by the United States Congress and is currently set at eight by the Judiciary Act of 1869.

Associate Justices, like the Chief Justice, are nominated by the President of the United States and are confirmed by the United States Senate by majority vote. This is provided for in Article II of the Constitution, which states that the President "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint...Judges of the supreme Court."

Article III of the Constitution specifies that Associate Justices, and all other United States federal judges "shall hold their Offices during good Behavior." This language means that the appointments are effectively for life, ending only when a Justice dies in office, retires, or is removed from office following impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate.

Each of the Justices of the Supreme Court has a single vote in deciding the cases argued before it; the Chief Justice's vote counts no more than that of any other Justice. However, in drafting opinions, the Chief Justice enjoys additional influence in case disposition if in the majority through his power to assign who writes the opinion. Otherwise, the senior justice in the majority assigns the writing of a decision. Furthermore, the Chief Justice leads the discussion of the case among the justices. The Chief Justice has certain administrative responsibilities that the other Justices do not and is paid slightly more ($223,500 per year for the Chief Justice and $213,900 per year for each Associate Justice).

Associate Justices have seniority by order of appointment, although the Chief Justice is always considered to be the most senior. If two justices are appointed on the same day, the older is designated the senior Justice of the two. Currently, the senior Associate Justice is Antonin Scalia. By tradition, when the Justices are in conference deliberating the outcome of cases before the Court, the justices state their views in order of seniority. If there is a knock at their conference room door, the junior justice (who sits closest to the door) must answer it. The current junior justice is Elena Kagan.

Under 28 USC 3, when the Chief Justice is unable to discharge his functions, or that office is vacant, his duties are carried out by the most senior Associate Justice until the disability or the vacancy ends.

The current Associate Justices are (in order of seniority):

  • Antonin Scalia

  • Anthony Kennedy

  • Clarence Thomas

  • Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  • Stephen Breyer

  • Samuel Alito

  • Sonia Sotomayor

  • Elena Kagan

Read more about Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States:  Retired Associate Justices, List of Associate Justices

Famous quotes containing the words united states, associate, justice, supreme, court, united and/or states:

    “The United States is a republic, and a republic is a state in which the people are the boss. That means us. And if the big shots in Washington don’t do like we vote, we don’t vote for them, by golly, no more.”
    —Willis Goldbeck (1900–1979)

    “I know no other way to associate with great tasks than as play: as a sign of greatness, this is an essential presupposition.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what you will, is the great high-road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause.”
    —Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

    “Science, unguided by a higher abstract principle, freely hands over its secrets to a vastly developed and commercially inspired technology, and the latter, even less restrained by a supreme culture saving principle, with the means of science creates all the instruments of power demanded from it by the organization of Might.”
    —Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)

    “Of all things in life, Mrs. Lee held this kind of court-service in contempt, for she was something more than republican—a little communistic at heart, and her only serious complaint of the President and his wife was that they undertook to have a court and to ape monarchy. She had no notion of admitting social superiority in any one, President or Prince, and to be suddenly converted into a lady-in-waiting to a small German Grand-Duchess, was a terrible blow.”
    —Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)

    “The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.”
    —Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)

    “... no young colored person in the United States today can truthfully offer as an excuse for lack of ambition or aspiration that members of his race have accomplished so little, he is discouraged from attempting anything himself. For there is scarcely a field of human endeavor which colored people have been allowed to enter in which there is not at least one worthy representative.”
    —Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954)