USA Supreme Court of Nine; Are They Losing Respect?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                        

      Six men and three women in the picture, soon to be five men and 4 women

The Supreme Court as composed October 27, 2020 to 

present.
Front row, left to right: Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.,

 Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. 

Roberts, Jr., Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, and 

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Back row, left to right: Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, 

Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil M. 

Gorsuch, and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Credit: Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the

 United States

Nine Justices make up the current Supreme Court: one Chief 

Justice and eight Associate Justices. The Honorable John G. 

Roberts, Jr., is the 17th Chief Justice of the United States, 

and there have been 103 Associate Justices in the Court’s

 history.

" Americans’ confidence in the Supreme Court has

 collapsed since Trump packed it with a 6–3 right-wing

 majority. Half of U.S. voters and 53% of Americans in

 general now have little to no confidence in the court".

That is sad that it's come to that.  Here we are with half our 

country who thinks that Trump cheated to become President,

while Trumps side believe that the opposition cheated to deny 

him a 2nd term.  Looking at this,  everyone is a cheater, thinks

nothing of cheating.  Both sides sides accuse the other of 

cheating!                                      

                         Trump appointed Supreme Court Judges

1. That would have been Neil Gorsuch in 2017, b: August 29, 

1967, Republican, 6'0" tall, Harvard Law School,  He is the first

 Supreme Court justice to serve alongside a justice for whom

 he  once clerked (Kennedy).

2. Brett Kavenaugh in 2018, b: February 12, 1965, Republican,

Yale Law University, clerked for Supreme Court Justice Anthony

 Kennedy from 1993 to 1994, alongside fellow Georgetown 

Prep alumnus Neil Gorsuch and with future Judge Gary

 Feinerman.

3. Amy Conen Barrett in 2020, b: January 28, 1972,  Notre 

Dame Law School, Described as a  protégée of Justice

 Antonin Scalia, for whom she previously  clerked, Barrett supports textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism

 in interpreting the Constitution.

Barrett is generally considered part of a centrist-conservative

 bloc on the Court that is concerned about the Court's public 

image.  She was nominated to succeed Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Barrett's notable appellate opinions include Doe v. Purdue 

University, which she wrote as part of a unanimous three-

judge panel, and her dissent in Kanter v. Barr.

"Two of Kennedy's former clerks, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh,

 eventually became Supreme Court justices. Conservative 

pundit George Will and Georgetown University Law Center

 professor Randy Barnett have described Kennedy's 

jurisprudence as "libertarian", although other legal scholars

 have disagreed".

                                          

 Soon to be judge: Ketanji Brown Jackson, b: September 14,

1970. She will replace retiring Judge Breyer.  

On February 25, 2022, President Joe Biden nominated 

Jackson to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of

 the United States, filling the vacancy that is to be created by

 Breyer's upcoming retirement. Upon being sworn in, 

Jackson will be the first black woman to serve on the

 Supreme Court.   Jackson graduated from Harvard in 1992

 with an A.B. magna cum laude, having written a senior thesis

 entitled   "The Hand of Oppression: Plea Bargaining

 Processes and the Coercion of Criminal Defendants".

Jackson worked as a staff reporter and researcher for Time

 magazine from 1992 to 1993, then attended Harvard Law

 School, where she was a supervising editor of the Harvard

 Law Review. She graduated in 1996 with a Juris Doctor cum

 laude. 

 As far as any of us know, these 9 people are sharp when it

comes to the law.  They have learned how to understand it. 

 They have more experience than you or I. It shouldn't matter

 if  they had been Republicans or Democrats, men or women,

 the  law is the law.   That's what we expect from them. 

 Legally, they must not bend the law to suit their backers.  

Resource:

Heather Cox Richardson, May 10,2022-Letters

From an American

https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/justices.aspx

https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_justices_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy