The retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has launched the process of nominating and eventually confirming someone to take his place on the highest federal court of the United States. This process always generates plenty of discussion on all sides of the political spectrum, and it supplies the media with a guaranteed flow of material for articles, interviews and commentary. No matter your opinion on the nominee or the politics surrounding the nomination, this is history in the making.
The Supreme Court was established in 1789, and since that time 113 justices have served on the court. Visiting the government website for the Supreme Court, www.supremecourt.gov, I browsed the FAQ page and came across some interesting information. Seven justices started their legal careers as Supreme Court law clerks including William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, and Elena Kagan, who clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Nine justices serve on the court, but it hasn’t always been that number. In 1789, Congress passed the first Judiciary Act which set the number of justices at six. Over the years, the number fluctuated from five to 10 as various acts were passed, then in 1869, the number was fixed at nine.
I knew that justices can serve for life (unless impeached, which has happened only once, when Associate Justice Samuel Chase was impeached in 1805 by the House of Representatives; he was then acquitted by the Senate), but I didn’t know that the language in the U.S. Constitution says that justices “shall hold their offices during good behavior” — which means as long as they choose.
