Nice job, Elendil’s Heir. Informative and well written. Is this your first staff report? I don’t recall seeing others from you…
I thought maybe this was a new reality TV series.
You mean it’s not Simon Cowell? (Yeah, I know, he’s British.)
I did get confused by one paragraph:
So you’re saying that title used to be correct, but Congress’s acceptance of Chase’s action made the new title official and, therefore, the old title wrong?
Great to see a new Staff Report - it’s been a little while. And I agree, it was well written and informative. Thanks!
Thanks, everyone.
Oakminster, this was actually my third Staff Report. Here are the two earlier:
Irishman, Congress changed the title, reflecting Chase’s view of the job’s national importance. His predecessors had the old title; he and all of his successors up to the present day have the revised title. Use of the old title when referring to John Jay through Roger B. Taney is technically correct, since that’s what the title was during their service on the Court, but often nowadays the Chase-inspired revised title is used retrospectively.
Ditto on the kudos. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about government, but I was really interested in some of the minor powers/perks of the office.
Thanks. I encourage anyone interested in the Supreme Court today to read Jeffrey Toobin’s The Nine, which I listed in my bibliography. It’s a great read, and a fascinating mix of law, history, politics and gossip.
Here’s a somewhat related question. In the aftermath of the assassination attempt, I read a few stories* that referred to Judge John Roll as, ‘the highest federal judge in Arizona.’ I can understand referring to the chief justice of the state’s supreme court as the highest, but this has me stumped. I thought at the federal level we generally have districts containing multiple states- Wikipedia tells me AZ is in the 9th along with much of the west. So can a state have a highest federal judge, is that a mistake, or what?
- I can’t find any of the stories now, but I believe one was MSNBC and another was a local AZ paper. Both were from the day of the shooting.
Congrats, Elendil’s Heir, on the Staff Report… and upon your promotion to the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board, a title which now gloriously appears under your name.
MeDrewNotYou, the late lamented Judge Roll was the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. The entire U.S. and its territories have been divided up by Congress into 94 Federal Districts - bigger states are subdivided, but others (such as Arizona and most Western states except California and Washington State) are a single Federal District unto themselves. Roll was the top judge of the Federal trial court of that state. Here’s more on the court: United States District Court for the District of Arizona - Wikipedia
While the Federal trial-level courts are organized into named districts, the Federal courts of appeals are organized into numbered circuits. As you note, Arizona is part of the Ninth Circuit, which covers most of the West. Here’s a good map of the geographic reach of the entire Federal judiciary: Circuit Map.ai -- Page 1
Many thanks for your kind words, CKDH! Although I’m not really a scientist, now I get to pretend to be one on teh Intrawebs. (Might make more sense to change the SDSAB’s second “s” to “staff” rather than “science,” come to think of it).
:smack: The link to the section on the district court of AZ was on his wiki page. Thanks for the links and clarification.
I’ve actually disliked the term SDSAB ever since it was inaugerated, lo these many centuries ago. However, Ed invented it and likes it. I think it tracks from the Latin, where scientia means “knowledge.” There’s a reference in Cicero’s Orations to the Straitus Dopus Scientia Advocationis Tabula, where Straitus Dopus was the name of a senator, who had a Knowledge Counseling Board.
A little-known fact about Senator Dopus was that, although his wife was reputed the most beautiful woman in Rome, he actually preferred the company of young men. So the scurrilous wits of the day painted on the walls of the Capitol, “Straitus non straitus sed gaius est.”
Oh, yeah… I think I remember a passing reference to him in Gladiator.
Nowadays, we call that a “clue-by-four”.
Powers &8^]
Yes, nice one, Elendil’s Heir!
What I liked reading in there (from the protocol order of precedence like) was that the mayor of my town can shove any ex-presidents aside and take a better seat in events in my town, and that the governor of Delaware can tell all the other governors to “eat his shorts” at events when both governors are out of their own state.
Yes, there are some quirks to the list. For instance, the U.S. ambassador outranks his or her own boss, the Secretary of State, when in the country to which the diplomat has been assigned. And if I were the mayor of Washington, D.C., I’d go to every White House and State Department event I could, and be guaranteed of outranking virtually everyone there!
More on Judge Roll, including praise from the Chief Justice: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/14/arizona.memorial/index.html?hpt=T2
More on the very low public profile of the Chief Justice: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/03/29/the-best-supreme-court-chart-ever/
Just noting: until today’s post, this thread is from 2011.