Two questions related to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court:
(1) What exactly does the Chief Justice do that is different than what a regular Supreme Court Justice does?
(2) Has anyone ever been named Chief Justice who wasn’t already a Justice on the Supreme Court?
If the Chief justice is in the majority, he decides who writes the majority opinion. CJ Earl Warren is famous for writing all of his opinions. He also presides over an impeachment trial of the President. There are also some obscure duties listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Justice_of_the_United_States
I can’t answer 2).
There is no rule that the Chief Justice has to be a current member of the Supreme Court. There isn’t even un unwritten tradition.
MOST of the time, the new Chief Justice isn’t a current associate justice. Warren Burger wasn’t on the Supreme Court at the time Richard Nixon appointed him as Chief Justice, and Earl Warren wasn’t on the Supreme Court when Eisenhower made him Chief Justice.
Assuming Wikipedia is accurate, only two other CJs besides Rehnquist were AJs first: Edward Douglass White; and Harlan Fiske Stone.
Politically it’s easier to nominate a CJ from outside the current associate justices. If a current justice is nominated they have to go through the senate approval process again. If someone outside the current court is nominated for Chief Justice there’s just the one examination.
I was just popping in to mention this, so here’s a link.
Okay, so, if the Chief Justice is *not *in the majority, then who decides who writes the majority opinion?
I believe it’s the senior-most justice who is in the majority.
As long as we’re doing SCOTUS questions, as of right now today are there 7 justices or 8? IOW, when O’Connor resigned was it effective immediately or upon the confirmation of her successor? Media reports appear mixed.
Justice O’Connor’s resignation letter http://www.supremecourtus.gov/publicinfo/press/oconnor070105.pdf
states that she will retire from the court effective upon the nomination and confirmation of her successor.
So far that hasn’t happened.
It’s tradition that the Chief Justice administer the oath which is normally given during the January 20th inauguration ceremony.
If the Supreme Court is deadlocked (say one of the Judges has recused themselves), does the Chief Justice get a second vote?
No
On the Sunday morning talk shows, someone said there were 5 AJs who moved up, and 11 CJs who had not been members of the Supreme Court first.
Checking the biographies of all 16:
Charles Evan Hughes had served on the Supreme Court, resigned to run for office, then was appointed CJ 14 years later.
John Rutledge served for two years on the Supreme Court, resigned and then was appointed as interim CJ three years later.
Although the greater share of the Chief Justice’s time is spent in sitting as a member of and presiding over the Supreme Court, the actual answer to this question lies in a bit of trivia. The last person officially denominated Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Morrison R. Waite, left office in 1888. His successor, Melville W. Fuller, and all Chiefs since, have been officially the Chief Justice of the United States.
And the point underlying this is that it is the Chief Justice’s responsibility to assure the proper and efficient operation of the lower Federal courts, including arranging for their budgets, assigning justices (usually retired ones) to assist in covering workloads, presiding over the Judicial Conference, heading up the Office of Court Administration, etc. He has extra staff to assist in these duties, over and above the secretaries and clerks of his chamber. But typically the C.J. spends a significant minority of his time in handling these responsibilities.
In that regard, it might be noted that two Chiefs who usually get short shrift from fairly liberal writers about the Court put major efforts into establishing a stable, smooth-running operation for the Federal court system: William H. Taft and Warren Burger. Both were conscientious visionaries as regards how the courts might best be run, and a great deal of the ease of taking a case through the Federal court system is due to their efforts.
The Chief Justice is also Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution. I don’t know if that involes any actual duties or if it’s purely honoury.
Can you elaborate a bit on some aspects which were different before the reforms occurred?
The Chief Justice usually heads Presidential Commissions. One famous example is the Warren Commission which investigated the assasination of JFK.
In addition to White, Stone, Rehnquist, Hughes and Rutledge, Associate Justice Abe Fortas was nominated by LBJ to replace retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren, but a controversy arose regarding Fortas’ acceptance of honoraria from speaking engagements and the Senate GOP (and some Southern Democrats) filibustered him. (I assume the filibuster was motivated more by Fortas’ – and Johnson’s – politics than any real fear of impropriety, but it was 5 years before my birth, so I that’s just me reading between the lines.) The next year, Assoc. Justice Fortas got in trouble again for accepting a speaking fee from his old pal Louis Wolfson, who was under investigation for securities fraud (and ended up in jail because of it). The ensuing scandal led Fortas to resign.
–Cliffy
Not to be pedantic… oh, OK, I will. The title is actually “Chief Justice of the United States,” and not of the Supreme Court itself. The title was changed by Congress at the request of Salmon P. Chase, appointed Chief Justice by President Lincoln in 1864. Chase wanted to underscore the equality of the judiciary with the other branches of the Federal government, and also apparently thought it would be a cooler title. See 28 U.S.C. 45 and 451.
Wikipedia.org has the correct title. President Bush muffed it in his Oval Office press conference nominating John Roberts for the post, and Sen. Trent Lott *repeatedly * muffed it in introducing Rehnquist at Bush’s Second Inaugural in January.
Just a pet peeve of mine…
Ok, but I can’t think of a single other instance where a sitting CJ headed a presidential commission. The Rogers Commission investigated the Challenger disaster, headed by former Attorney General and Secretary of State William Rogers. The Tower Commission, which investigated the Iran-Contra scandal, was headed by former Senator John Tower. Thomas Kean, who chaired the 9-11 commission, was the former Governor of New Jersey.
Unless you can give some other examples, I’ll assert that having a CJ head the Warren Commission was a one-time event.