Supreme Court of the United States — Attraction in Washington

The ratification of the United States Constitution  established the Supreme Court in 1789. Its powers are detailed in Article Three of the Constitution. The Supreme Court was the only court specifically established by the Constitution while all other federal courts were created by Congress. Congress is also responsible for conferring the title of "justice" to its members, who are known to scold lawyers for inaccurately referring to them as "judge", even though it is the term used in the Constitution.

The Court first convened on February 2, 1790,with six judges where only five of its six initial positions were filled. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, in its first session: "[T]he Supreme Court convened for the first time at the Royal Exchange Building  on Broad Street, a few steps from Federal Hall. Symbolically, the moment was pregnant with promise for the republic, this birth of a new national institution whose future power, admittedly, still existed only in the eyes and minds of just a few visionary Americans. Impressively bewigged and swathed in their robes of office, Chief Justice John Jay and three associate justices — William Cushing of Massachusetts, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, and John Blair of Virginia — sat augustly before a throng of spectators and waited for something to happen. Nothing did. They had no cases to consider. After a week of inactivity, they adjourned until September, and everyone went home."

The sixth member, James, was not confirmed until May 12, 1790. Because the full Court had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was also made by two-thirds (voting four to two). However, Congress has always allowed less than the Court's full membership to make decisions, starting with a quorum  of four justices in 1789.The Supreme Court first met on February 1, 1790, at the Merchants' Exchange Building in New York City. When Philadelphia became the capital, the Court met briefly in Independence Hall  before settling in Old City Hall  from 1791 until 1800. After the government moved to Washington, D.C., the Court occupied various spaces in the United States Capitol  building until 1935, when it moved into its own purpose-built home. The four-story building was designed by  cass gilbert in a classical style sympathetic to the surrounding buildings of the Capitol  and Library of Congress, and is clad in marble. The building includes the courtroom, justices' chambers, an extensive law library, various meeting spaces, and auxiliary services including a gymnasium. The Supreme Court building is within the ambit of the Architect of the Capitol, but maintains its own police force  separate from the Capitol Police.

Located across First Street from the United States Capitol  at One First Street NE and Maryland Avenue, the building is open to the public from 9 am to 4:30 pm weekdays but closed on weekends and holidays.Visitors may not tour the actual courtroom unaccompanied. There is a cafeteria, a gift shop, exhibits, and a half-hour informational film.When the Court is not in session, lectures about the courtroom are held hourly from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm and reservations are not necessary.When the Court is in session the public may attend oral arguments, which are held twice each morning (and sometimes afternoons) on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays in two-week intervals from October through late April, with breaks during December and February. Visitors are seated on a first-come first-served basis. One estimate is there are about 250 seats available.The number of open seats varies from case to case; for important cases, some visitors arrive the day before and wait through the night. From mid-May until the end of June, the court releases orders and opinions beginning at 10 am, and these 15 to 30-minute sessions are open to the public on a similar basis. Supreme Court Police are available to...

This review is for attending the oral arguments. The exhibition inside is very small but informative, and is worth a short visit if you're in the area.

For attending oral arguments, my recommendation is do NOT do it.

Attending an oral argument is very popular these days even for relatively "boring" technical cases, so if you're not in line by 5:15am or earlier you are at serious risk of not getting in. Between 7:30 and 8am, only the first 50 people in line are given passes to attend the days oral arguments which start at 10am. The remainder of the line then waits until about 9:30am at which point you can either remain in the main line and hope that enough people leave so you can attend the next case or you can go to a new line allowing 3-minute visits of the oral argument.

There are so many pain points in this process that I very strongly discourage dealing with it; you get the impression that the Supreme Court implicitly discourages attending oral argument based on the lack of information provided and general indifference in their process.

For one, even if you are in the first 50 group, you'll be waiting 4+ hours -- 2+ hours in the cold and then another 2+ hours for the first oral argument starting at 10am -- and you'll be tired from spending so many hours waiting.

If you miss the cut for 50 people, then you are stuck with two bad options. The 3-minute viewing let's you see the court in session behind a silk curtain and the time is so brief that you don't get much exposure to anything of value for all your time waiting; only about twenty people get this access anyway. Alternatively, if you are not among the very first people in the second line (I'd say anyone behind 3 is at very high risk of not getting in), then you have almost no shot of getting in and will have to wait until 11am to learn that you waited 5+ hours for nothing. Even then, if you luckily get in you will be tired from the cold, early morning, and long hours waiting. Adding to this pain, no Supreme Court staff provides any guidance! I saw people waiting hours in the second line who were so far back that they would never have a chance to enter, yet no one said anything to them causing at least 100 people to unnecessarily waste hours...

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court of the United States. Established pursuant to Article Three of the United States Constitution in 1789, it has ultimate (and largely discretionary) appellate jurisdiction over all federal courts and state court cases involving issues of federal law plus original jurisdiction over a small range of cases. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is generally the final interpreter of federal law including the United States Constitution, but it may act only within the context of a case, in which it has jurisdiction. The Court does not have power to decide political questions, and its enforcement arm is in the executive rather than judicial branch of government. According to federal statute, the Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Once appointed, justices have lifetime tenure unless they resign, retire, or are removed after impeachment (though no justice has ever been removed).[2] In modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and it is worth noting that while a far greater number of cases in recent history have been decided unanimously, decisions in cases of the highest profile have often come down to just one single vote, thereby exposing the justices' ideological beliefs that track with those philosophical or political categories. The Court meets in the Supreme Court Building in...