OVERVIEW

Who are the Justices on the Supreme Court? Not many people can answer this question. In fact, only 15% of Americans can identify correctly the Chief Justice of the United States. Not you all! The eight men and one woman who serve on the Supreme Court have a great degree of power over your lives and over your rights. You need to be able to identify these individuals –not simply to answer a trivia question– but also to understand their judicial philosophies and their role on the Court. Such knowledge will help you make sense of Supreme Court rulings in key cases from this term and help you assess how the retirement of a justice potentially shifts the balance of the Court.

To learn more about public understanding of the judicial branch, check out the Pew Research Center survey or the Annenberg Public Policy survey. judicial_findings_10-17-2007.pdf

REQUIREMENTS

Create a well-designed and concise PPT and a well-organized and concise presentation (no more than 5 minutes) to introduce your classmates to one of the Justices on the Supreme Court. You will need to do some research. You may use wikipedia as a starting point, but you MUST go beyond wikipedia in your search for information. Be savvy about your sources. You might encounter some biased information about these individuals. When in doubt, ask. It goes without saying that you should include a properly formated (MLA!) Works Cited at the conclusion of your PPT. It also goes without saying that you are expected to put all of your research into your own words and to provide proper citations if you are quoting directly. Presentations which follow too closely both the organization and the language of a particular source will be considered in violation of the Honor Code and be treated accordingly.

QUESTIONS

The following questions are designed to guide your research. Avoid creating a PPT which simply answers these questions in order. You’ll put your classmates to sleep. Gather the information. Then consider an interesting way to present it to your peers. Identifying a theme for your presentation will help.

• Home state

• Gender, current age, birth place

• Family

• Year and age when appointed | President who did the appointing | Political party of this president

• Confirmation Vote

• Education and degrees

• Previous judgeships

• Previous legal experiences

• Political leaning of the justice (conservative | liberal)

• Additional factors which help to explain his/her view of the Constitution

• One REALLY good quote which illustrates his or her view of the Constitution and the role of the Court in our democratic system of govt.

SCHEDULE

• Chief Justice John Roberts: Tuesday, April 8th

Schedule

• Chief Justice John Roberts: Thursday, April 10th

• Justice Antonin Scalia: Thursday, April 10th

• Justice Anthony Kennedy: Tuesday, April 15th

• Justice Clarence Thomas: Tuesday, April 15th

• Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Wednesday, April 23rd

• Justice Stephan Breyer:Thursday, April 24th

• Justice Samuel Alito: Thursday, April 24th

• Justice John Paul Stevens and Justice John Souter: Thursday, May 1st | Sources for Stevens

RESOURCES

• Oyez: http://www.oyez.org/courts/roberts/robt2/ —BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT PROPERLY USING THIS SITE.
• Yahoo Directory: http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/U_S__Government/Judicial_Branch/Supreme_Court/Justices/
• Findlaw: http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/justices/presjustices.html

EXAMPLE of GREAT PPT BY YOUR PEERS