“Why money doesn’t make us happier”
Please read the article “Why money doesn’t make us happier.” . You need to answer the following questions based on the reading on loose-leaf, only one answer sheet needs to be turned in per a group. Please do not write on this sheet and turn it in when you have finished the assignment.
1. According to Economists does money make individuals happier? Explain.
2. According to Psychologists does money make individuals happier? Explain.
3. In the 3rd paragraph the author states: “According to standard economics, the most important commodity you can buy with additional wealth is choice.” What does she mean by this? Why is possessing the ability to make choices so important?
4. On the scale of 1 to 7, where did the following groups of individuals end up?
a. American Multimillionaires
b. Homeless in Calcutta
c. Inuit of Northern Greenland
d. Cattle Herding Masai of Kenya
e. Slum dwellers in Calcutta
What conclusions can you draw about happiness from these statistics?
5. What reasons did the author give for the meaning of the following quote?
a. "Although economic output has risen steeply over the past decades, there has been no rise in life satisfaction … and there has been a substantial increase in depression and distrust.”
6. If money doesn’t buy happiness, what does?
7. According to the article what does the following quote mean?
a. "Economies can blossom and grow only if people are deluded into believing that the production of wealth will make them happy … Economies thrive when individuals strive, but because individuals will strive only for their own happiness, it is essential that they mistakenly believe that producing and consuming are routes to personal well-being."
8. In conclusion, what is your opinion? Does money buy happiness? Why or why not? Each student should give their opinion on whether or not money buys happiness.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Why Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness
Economists and psychologists—and the rest of us—have long wondered if more money would make us happier. Here's the answer.
Sharon Begley
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Updated: 8:41 PM ET Oct 14, 2007
All in all, it was probably a mistake to look for the answer to the eternal question—"Does money buy happiness?"—from people who practice what's called the dismal science. For when economists tackled the question, they started from the observation that when people put something up for sale they try to get as much for it as they can, and when people buy something they try to pay as little for it as they can. Both sides in the transaction, the economists noticed, are therefore behaving as if they would be more satisfied (happier, dare we say) if they wound up receiving more money (the seller) or holding on to more money (the buyer). Hence, more money must be better than less, and the only way more of something can be better than less of it is if it brings you greater contentment. The economists' conclusion: the more money you have, the happier you must be.
Depressed debutantes, suicidal CEOs, miserable magnates and other unhappy rich folks aren't the only ones giving the lie to this. "Psychologists have spent decades studying the relation between wealth and happiness," writes Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert in his best-selling "Stumbling on Happiness," "and they have generally concluded that wealth increases human happiness when it lifts people out of abject poverty and into the middle class but that it does little to increase happiness thereafter."
That flies in the face of intuition, not to mention economic theory. According to standard economics, the most important commodity you can buy with additional wealth is choice. If you have $20 in your pocket, you can decide between steak and peanut butter for dinner, but if you have only $1 you'd better hope you already have a jar of jelly at home. Additional wealth also lets you satisfy additional needs and wants, and the more of those you satisfy the happier you are supposed to be.
The trouble is, choice is not all it's cracked up to be. Studies show that people like selecting from among maybe half a dozen kinds of pasta at the grocery store but find 27 choices overwhelming, leaving them chronically on edge that they could have chosen a better one than they did. And wants, which are nice to be able to afford, have a bad habit of becoming needs (iPod, anyone?), of which an advertising- and media-saturated culture create endless numbers. Satisfying needs brings less emotional well-being than satisfying wants.
The nonlinear nature of how much happiness money can buy—lots more happiness when it moves you out of penury and into middle-class comfort, hardly any more when it lifts you from millionaire to decamillionaire—comes through clearly in global surveys that ask people how content they feel with their lives. In a typical survey people are asked to rank their sense of well-being or happiness on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 means "not at all satisfied with my life" and 7 means "completely satisfied." Of the American multimillionaires who responded, the average happiness score was 5.8. Homeless people in Calcutta came in at 2.9. But before you assume that money does buy happiness after all, consider who else rated themselves around 5.8: the Inuit of northern Greenland, who do not exactly lead a life of luxury, and the cattle-herding Masai of Kenya, whose dung huts have no electricity or running water. And proving Gilbert's point about money buying happiness only when it lifts you out of abject poverty, slum dwellers in Calcutta—one economic rung above the homeless—rate themselves at 4.6.
Studies tracking changes in a population's reported level of happiness over time have also dealt a death blow to the money-buys-happiness claim. Since World War II the gross domestic product per capita has tripled in the United States. But people's sense of well-being, as measured by surveys asking some variation of "Overall, how satisfied are you with your life?," has barely budged. Japan has had an even more meteoric rise in GDP per capita since its postwar misery, but measures of national happiness have been flat, as they have also been in Western Europe during its long postwar boom, according to social psychologist Ruut Veenhoven of Erasmus University in Rotterdam. A 2004 analysis of more than 150 studies on wealth and happiness concluded that "economic indicators have glaring shortcomings" as approximations of well-being across nations, wrote Ed Diener of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Martin E. P. Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania. "Although economic output has risen steeply over the past decades, there has been no rise in life satisfaction … and there has been a substantial increase in depression and distrust."
That's partly because in an expanding economy, in which former luxuries such as washing machines become necessities, the newly affluent don't feel the same joy in having a machine do the laundry that their grandparents, suddenly freed from washboards, did. They just take the Maytag for granted. "Americans who earn $50,000 per year are much happier than those who earn $10,000 per year," writes Gilbert, "but Americans who earn $5 million per year are not much happier than those who earn $100,000 per year." Another reason is that an expanding paycheck, especially in an expanding economy, produces expanding aspirations and a sense that there is always one more cool thing out there that you absolutely have to have. "Economic success falls short as a measure of well-being, in part because materialism can negatively influence well-being," Diener and Seligman conclude.
If money doesn't buy happiness, what does? Grandma was right when she told you to value health and friends, not money and stuff. Or as Diener and Seligman put it, once your basic needs are met "differences in well-being are less frequently due to income, and are more frequently due to factors such as social relationships and enjoyment at work." Other researchers add fulfillment, a sense that life has meaning, belonging to civic and other groups, and living in a democracy that respects individual rights and the rule of law. If a nation wants to increase its population's sense of well-being, says Veenhoven, it should make "less investment in economic growth and more in policies that promote good governance, liberties, democracy, trust and public safety."
(Curiously, although money doesn't buy happiness, happiness can buy money. Young people who describe themselves as happy typically earn higher incomes, years later, than those who said they were unhappy. It seems that a sense of well-being can make you more productive and more likely to show initiative and other traits that lead to a higher income. Contented people are also more likely to marry and stay married, as well as to be healthy, both of which increase happiness.)
If more money doesn't buy more happiness, then the behavior of most Americans looks downright insane, as we work harder and longer, decade after decade, to fatten our W-2s. But what is insane for an individual is crucial for a national economy—that is, ever more growth and consumption. Gilbert again: "Economies can blossom and grow only if people are deluded into believing that the production of wealth will make them happy … Economies thrive when individuals strive, but because individuals will strive only for their own happiness, it is essential that they mistakenly believe that producing and consuming are routes to personal well-being." In other words, if you want to do your part for your country's economy, forget all of the above about money not buying happiness.
Economists and psychologists—and the rest of us—have long wondered if more money would make us happier. Here's the answer.
Sharon Begley
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Updated: 8:41 PM ET Oct 14, 2007
All in all, it was probably a mistake to look for the answer to the eternal question—"Does money buy happiness?"—from people who practice what's called the dismal science. For when economists tackled the question, they started from the observation that when people put something up for sale they try to get as much for it as they can, and when people buy something they try to pay as little for it as they can. Both sides in the transaction, the economists noticed, are therefore behaving as if they would be more satisfied (happier, dare we say) if they wound up receiving more money (the seller) or holding on to more money (the buyer). Hence, more money must be better than less, and the only way more of something can be better than less of it is if it brings you greater contentment. The economists' conclusion: the more money you have, the happier you must be.
Depressed debutantes, suicidal CEOs, miserable magnates and other unhappy rich folks aren't the only ones giving the lie to this. "Psychologists have spent decades studying the relation between wealth and happiness," writes Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert in his best-selling "Stumbling on Happiness," "and they have generally concluded that wealth increases human happiness when it lifts people out of abject poverty and into the middle class but that it does little to increase happiness thereafter."
That flies in the face of intuition, not to mention economic theory. According to standard economics, the most important commodity you can buy with additional wealth is choice. If you have $20 in your pocket, you can decide between steak and peanut butter for dinner, but if you have only $1 you'd better hope you already have a jar of jelly at home. Additional wealth also lets you satisfy additional needs and wants, and the more of those you satisfy the happier you are supposed to be.
The trouble is, choice is not all it's cracked up to be. Studies show that people like selecting from among maybe half a dozen kinds of pasta at the grocery store but find 27 choices overwhelming, leaving them chronically on edge that they could have chosen a better one than they did. And wants, which are nice to be able to afford, have a bad habit of becoming needs (iPod, anyone?), of which an advertising- and media-saturated culture create endless numbers. Satisfying needs brings less emotional well-being than satisfying wants.
The nonlinear nature of how much happiness money can buy—lots more happiness when it moves you out of penury and into middle-class comfort, hardly any more when it lifts you from millionaire to decamillionaire—comes through clearly in global surveys that ask people how content they feel with their lives. In a typical survey people are asked to rank their sense of well-being or happiness on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 means "not at all satisfied with my life" and 7 means "completely satisfied." Of the American multimillionaires who responded, the average happiness score was 5.8. Homeless people in Calcutta came in at 2.9. But before you assume that money does buy happiness after all, consider who else rated themselves around 5.8: the Inuit of northern Greenland, who do not exactly lead a life of luxury, and the cattle-herding Masai of Kenya, whose dung huts have no electricity or running water. And proving Gilbert's point about money buying happiness only when it lifts you out of abject poverty, slum dwellers in Calcutta—one economic rung above the homeless—rate themselves at 4.6.
Studies tracking changes in a population's reported level of happiness over time have also dealt a death blow to the money-buys-happiness claim. Since World War II the gross domestic product per capita has tripled in the United States. But people's sense of well-being, as measured by surveys asking some variation of "Overall, how satisfied are you with your life?," has barely budged. Japan has had an even more meteoric rise in GDP per capita since its postwar misery, but measures of national happiness have been flat, as they have also been in Western Europe during its long postwar boom, according to social psychologist Ruut Veenhoven of Erasmus University in Rotterdam. A 2004 analysis of more than 150 studies on wealth and happiness concluded that "economic indicators have glaring shortcomings" as approximations of well-being across nations, wrote Ed Diener of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Martin E. P. Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania. "Although economic output has risen steeply over the past decades, there has been no rise in life satisfaction … and there has been a substantial increase in depression and distrust."
That's partly because in an expanding economy, in which former luxuries such as washing machines become necessities, the newly affluent don't feel the same joy in having a machine do the laundry that their grandparents, suddenly freed from washboards, did. They just take the Maytag for granted. "Americans who earn $50,000 per year are much happier than those who earn $10,000 per year," writes Gilbert, "but Americans who earn $5 million per year are not much happier than those who earn $100,000 per year." Another reason is that an expanding paycheck, especially in an expanding economy, produces expanding aspirations and a sense that there is always one more cool thing out there that you absolutely have to have. "Economic success falls short as a measure of well-being, in part because materialism can negatively influence well-being," Diener and Seligman conclude.
If money doesn't buy happiness, what does? Grandma was right when she told you to value health and friends, not money and stuff. Or as Diener and Seligman put it, once your basic needs are met "differences in well-being are less frequently due to income, and are more frequently due to factors such as social relationships and enjoyment at work." Other researchers add fulfillment, a sense that life has meaning, belonging to civic and other groups, and living in a democracy that respects individual rights and the rule of law. If a nation wants to increase its population's sense of well-being, says Veenhoven, it should make "less investment in economic growth and more in policies that promote good governance, liberties, democracy, trust and public safety."
(Curiously, although money doesn't buy happiness, happiness can buy money. Young people who describe themselves as happy typically earn higher incomes, years later, than those who said they were unhappy. It seems that a sense of well-being can make you more productive and more likely to show initiative and other traits that lead to a higher income. Contented people are also more likely to marry and stay married, as well as to be healthy, both of which increase happiness.)
If more money doesn't buy more happiness, then the behavior of most Americans looks downright insane, as we work harder and longer, decade after decade, to fatten our W-2s. But what is insane for an individual is crucial for a national economy—that is, ever more growth and consumption. Gilbert again: "Economies can blossom and grow only if people are deluded into believing that the production of wealth will make them happy … Economies thrive when individuals strive, but because individuals will strive only for their own happiness, it is essential that they mistakenly believe that producing and consuming are routes to personal well-being." In other words, if you want to do your part for your country's economy, forget all of the above about money not buying happiness.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Judicial Branch Notes
Background
•In the late 1700’s there were no national courts in place, each state interpreted the law in their own way. There was no consistency across the board
•Often decisions by Courts in one State were ignored by courts in other States
•The framers of the Constitution finally in Article III:
oThe Judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish
What you need to remember is that there are 2 SEPARATE COURT SYSTEMS
•National judiciary spans the country with 100 courts
•Each of the 50 States has their own separate court
oState courts hear most of the cases
•Supreme Court
•Federal Court
oConstitutional Courts
•Court of Appeals
•District Courts
•Court of International Trade
oSpecial Courts- created by Congress to hear cases arising out of some of the expressed powers given to Congress in the Constitution, they hear a much narrower range of cases… sometimes called Legislative Courts
•Military Appeals
•Court of Veterans Appeals
•Claims Courts
•Tax Courts
Jurisdiction
•The authority of a court to hear and decide a case
•Literally: the power “to say the law”
Judicial Review
•Power of the courts to determine the constitutionality of the actions of the legislative and executive branches of government
•The ultimate exercise of this power rest with the Supreme Court
This is the single fact that makes the Supreme Court the final authority on the meaning of the Constitution
Appointment of Judges
•The President appoints
oFree to name anyone the Senate approves
•Most are drawn from the ranks of leading attorneys, legal scholars, and law professors, former members of Congress, and from the State Courts
•Political considerations
oLook at their own political party in making appointments
•Republican president will pick republicans
•Democratic president will pick democrats
oEvery president knows that most of the judges he/she appoints will serve for decades
oAlso look for judges who share their own legal and political outlook- the presidents ideology
Terms and Pay of Judges:
Appointed for life
oUntil they resign, retire, or die in office
oMay only be removed through the impeachment process
•Only 13 federal judges have been impeached
oCheck the footnote on page 465
Congress sets the salary of all federal judges
oChief justice $202,900
oAssociate justices $194,200
Congress provides a very generous retirement package
oThey may retire at the age of 70 after they have served at least 10 years, receive full salary for the rest of their lives
oThey may retire at the age of 65 after they have served 15 years
The Chief Justice may call any retired judge back to temporary duty in a lower federal court at any time
Primary Job: Hear and decide cases
Lower Federal Courts
•District Courts are the Federal trial courts
o649 judges handle some 250,000 cases a year (80% of the federal caseload)
oThere are 91 district courts
oThe 50 states are divided into 89 judicial districts- with one court in each district
oWashington DC
oPuerto Rico
•Each state forms at least one district- no matter the size or population… larger more populous states are divided into 2 or more districts
•At least 2 judges are assigned to each district… but many have several
•Cases heard in the district courts are most oven heard by a single judge
•Jurisdiction
oHave original jurisdiction over most cases that are heard in the federal courts… they are the principle trial courts in the FEDERAL COURT SYSTEM
1.Criminal: is one in which a defendant is tried for committing some action that congress has declared by law to be a federal crime, a wrong against the public
a.Bank robbery, kidnapping, mail fraud, counterfeiting, tax evasion, narcotics violations
2.Civil: involves some non-criminal matter, such as a dispute between two parties over the terms of a contract of a claim of patent infringement
a.Bankruptcy, postal, tax, labor relations, public lands, civil rights, and other laws
oThe only federal courts that regularly use juries to indict defendants and petit juries to try defendants
oMost of the decisions in the 91 federal courts are final and proceed no further through the judicial system
oSome cases are appealed to the court of appeals in that judicial circuit, or in a few instances, directly to the Supreme Court
•Court of Appeals
oEstablished as the gate keepers to relieve the Supreme Court of much of the burden of hearing appeals from the district courts
oThere are 12 court of appeals in the judicial system
oThe US is divided up into 11 judicial circuits, with one court of appeals for each of those circuits
Washington DC has one
o179 circuit judges sit on the appellate courts
oIn addition each justice is assigned to one of the appellate courts
oThe court of appeals only has appellate jurisdiction
They hear cases on appeal from the lower federal courts
They also hear appeal from the decisions of several federal regulatory agencies
oThey handle 40,000 cases a year
oTheir decisions are final, unless the Supreme Court chooses to hear appeals taken from them
How cases reach the Supreme Court
•Some 4,500 to 5,000 cases are appealed to the Supreme Court each year
•Of these, the court only accepts a few hundred for decision
•The rule of 4
oAt least 4 of the 9 justices must agree that a case should be put on the Courts dockets
•More than half the cases decided by the Court are disposed of in brief orders
oFor example: an order may return a case to a lower court for reconsideration in the light of some other recent and related cases decided by the high court
•The court decides, after hearing arguments and with full opinions, only about 120 cases a year
•Most cases reach the Supreme Court by WRIT OF CERTIORARI, Latin for “to be made more certain”
oThis writ is an order by the Courts directing a lower court to send up the record for a given case for its review
oEither party can petition the court to issue a writ
oA cert is granted in only a limited number of instances
1.Typically only when a petition raises some important constitutional questions or a serious problem of statutory interpretation
oWhen certiorari is denied, the decision of the lower court stands in that particular case- so the case is done, it can’t go any further
2.All this means is that at least 4 justices could not agree that the Supreme Court should accept that case for review
•A few cases do reach the Supreme Court in another way- certificate
oThis process is used when a lower court is not clear about the procedure or the rule of the law that should apply in a case
oThe lower court asks the Supreme Court to certify the answer to a specific question in the matter
•Most cases that reach the court do so from the highest state courts and the federal court of appeals
•A few do come from the federal district courts and a few come for the Court of Military appeals
The Supreme Court at Work
The court sits from the first Monday in October to sometime the following June or July
Once the Supreme Court accepts a case, it sets a date on which lawyers on both sides will present oral arguments
As a rule the justices consider cases in two week cycles
oThey hear oral arguments in several cases for 2 weeks, then the justices recess for 2 weeks, to consider those cases and handle other court business
Briefs
oWritten documents filed with the Court before an oral argument
oDetailed statements that support one side of a case and are largely built of relevant facts and the citation of previous cases
Solicitor General
oThe principle officer in the Department of Justice- the Federal Governments Chief lawyer
oThey represent the US in all cases to which it is party in the Supreme Court, and may appear in any federal or state court
oThey decide which cases the government should ask the Supreme Court to review and, also, what position the US should take in cases before the High Court
Conference
oWhen justices consider cases and decide which new cases they will accept
oAbout a third of the decisions are unanimous
Opinions
oMajority opinion
The opinion of the court
Announces the courts opinion and sets out the reasoning on which it is based
oConcurring opinion
To make or emphasize a point that was not made in the majority opinion
oDissenting opinion
Written by justices that do not agree with the Court’s majority decision
One of the last steps that a case goes through we have not visited yet
The last concept is PRECEDENT
STARE DECISIS-->LET THE DECISION STAND
•In the late 1700’s there were no national courts in place, each state interpreted the law in their own way. There was no consistency across the board
•Often decisions by Courts in one State were ignored by courts in other States
•The framers of the Constitution finally in Article III:
oThe Judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish
What you need to remember is that there are 2 SEPARATE COURT SYSTEMS
•National judiciary spans the country with 100 courts
•Each of the 50 States has their own separate court
oState courts hear most of the cases
•Supreme Court
•Federal Court
oConstitutional Courts
•Court of Appeals
•District Courts
•Court of International Trade
oSpecial Courts- created by Congress to hear cases arising out of some of the expressed powers given to Congress in the Constitution, they hear a much narrower range of cases… sometimes called Legislative Courts
•Military Appeals
•Court of Veterans Appeals
•Claims Courts
•Tax Courts
Jurisdiction
•The authority of a court to hear and decide a case
•Literally: the power “to say the law”
Judicial Review
•Power of the courts to determine the constitutionality of the actions of the legislative and executive branches of government
•The ultimate exercise of this power rest with the Supreme Court
This is the single fact that makes the Supreme Court the final authority on the meaning of the Constitution
Appointment of Judges
•The President appoints
oFree to name anyone the Senate approves
•Most are drawn from the ranks of leading attorneys, legal scholars, and law professors, former members of Congress, and from the State Courts
•Political considerations
oLook at their own political party in making appointments
•Republican president will pick republicans
•Democratic president will pick democrats
oEvery president knows that most of the judges he/she appoints will serve for decades
oAlso look for judges who share their own legal and political outlook- the presidents ideology
Terms and Pay of Judges:
Appointed for life
oUntil they resign, retire, or die in office
oMay only be removed through the impeachment process
•Only 13 federal judges have been impeached
oCheck the footnote on page 465
Congress sets the salary of all federal judges
oChief justice $202,900
oAssociate justices $194,200
Congress provides a very generous retirement package
oThey may retire at the age of 70 after they have served at least 10 years, receive full salary for the rest of their lives
oThey may retire at the age of 65 after they have served 15 years
The Chief Justice may call any retired judge back to temporary duty in a lower federal court at any time
Primary Job: Hear and decide cases
Lower Federal Courts
•District Courts are the Federal trial courts
o649 judges handle some 250,000 cases a year (80% of the federal caseload)
oThere are 91 district courts
oThe 50 states are divided into 89 judicial districts- with one court in each district
oWashington DC
oPuerto Rico
•Each state forms at least one district- no matter the size or population… larger more populous states are divided into 2 or more districts
•At least 2 judges are assigned to each district… but many have several
•Cases heard in the district courts are most oven heard by a single judge
•Jurisdiction
oHave original jurisdiction over most cases that are heard in the federal courts… they are the principle trial courts in the FEDERAL COURT SYSTEM
1.Criminal: is one in which a defendant is tried for committing some action that congress has declared by law to be a federal crime, a wrong against the public
a.Bank robbery, kidnapping, mail fraud, counterfeiting, tax evasion, narcotics violations
2.Civil: involves some non-criminal matter, such as a dispute between two parties over the terms of a contract of a claim of patent infringement
a.Bankruptcy, postal, tax, labor relations, public lands, civil rights, and other laws
oThe only federal courts that regularly use juries to indict defendants and petit juries to try defendants
oMost of the decisions in the 91 federal courts are final and proceed no further through the judicial system
oSome cases are appealed to the court of appeals in that judicial circuit, or in a few instances, directly to the Supreme Court
•Court of Appeals
oEstablished as the gate keepers to relieve the Supreme Court of much of the burden of hearing appeals from the district courts
oThere are 12 court of appeals in the judicial system
oThe US is divided up into 11 judicial circuits, with one court of appeals for each of those circuits
Washington DC has one
o179 circuit judges sit on the appellate courts
oIn addition each justice is assigned to one of the appellate courts
oThe court of appeals only has appellate jurisdiction
They hear cases on appeal from the lower federal courts
They also hear appeal from the decisions of several federal regulatory agencies
oThey handle 40,000 cases a year
oTheir decisions are final, unless the Supreme Court chooses to hear appeals taken from them
How cases reach the Supreme Court
•Some 4,500 to 5,000 cases are appealed to the Supreme Court each year
•Of these, the court only accepts a few hundred for decision
•The rule of 4
oAt least 4 of the 9 justices must agree that a case should be put on the Courts dockets
•More than half the cases decided by the Court are disposed of in brief orders
oFor example: an order may return a case to a lower court for reconsideration in the light of some other recent and related cases decided by the high court
•The court decides, after hearing arguments and with full opinions, only about 120 cases a year
•Most cases reach the Supreme Court by WRIT OF CERTIORARI, Latin for “to be made more certain”
oThis writ is an order by the Courts directing a lower court to send up the record for a given case for its review
oEither party can petition the court to issue a writ
oA cert is granted in only a limited number of instances
1.Typically only when a petition raises some important constitutional questions or a serious problem of statutory interpretation
oWhen certiorari is denied, the decision of the lower court stands in that particular case- so the case is done, it can’t go any further
2.All this means is that at least 4 justices could not agree that the Supreme Court should accept that case for review
•A few cases do reach the Supreme Court in another way- certificate
oThis process is used when a lower court is not clear about the procedure or the rule of the law that should apply in a case
oThe lower court asks the Supreme Court to certify the answer to a specific question in the matter
•Most cases that reach the court do so from the highest state courts and the federal court of appeals
•A few do come from the federal district courts and a few come for the Court of Military appeals
The Supreme Court at Work
The court sits from the first Monday in October to sometime the following June or July
Once the Supreme Court accepts a case, it sets a date on which lawyers on both sides will present oral arguments
As a rule the justices consider cases in two week cycles
oThey hear oral arguments in several cases for 2 weeks, then the justices recess for 2 weeks, to consider those cases and handle other court business
Briefs
oWritten documents filed with the Court before an oral argument
oDetailed statements that support one side of a case and are largely built of relevant facts and the citation of previous cases
Solicitor General
oThe principle officer in the Department of Justice- the Federal Governments Chief lawyer
oThey represent the US in all cases to which it is party in the Supreme Court, and may appear in any federal or state court
oThey decide which cases the government should ask the Supreme Court to review and, also, what position the US should take in cases before the High Court
Conference
oWhen justices consider cases and decide which new cases they will accept
oAbout a third of the decisions are unanimous
Opinions
oMajority opinion
The opinion of the court
Announces the courts opinion and sets out the reasoning on which it is based
oConcurring opinion
To make or emphasize a point that was not made in the majority opinion
oDissenting opinion
Written by justices that do not agree with the Court’s majority decision
One of the last steps that a case goes through we have not visited yet
The last concept is PRECEDENT
STARE DECISIS-->LET THE DECISION STAND
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