William B. Castle and began service on July 10, ; had previously served as an Associate Judge of the Family Court; appointed Resident Judge of Sussex County on May 10, ; retired on November 13, , and returned to private practice. Susan C. Castle and began service on May 20, She was the state's first female Superior Court judge. She also was the first woman president of the Delaware State Bar Association. Judge Del Pesco helped start Delaware's first drug treatment facility for incarcerated women and implemented CLAD the nation's first electronic case filing system.
Judge Del Pesco retired May 30, Myron T. Steele -Appointed by former Governor Michael N. Norman A. Barron -Appointed by former Governor Michael N. Charles H. Castle and began service on February 9, ; had previously served as the Assistant City Solicitor for the City of Wilmington; retired from Superior Court on May 3, ; returned to private practice. Castle and began service on November 29, ; had previously served as a Judge of the Municipal Court for the City of Wilmington from July 1, until his appointment as a Judge of the Superior Court.
He formally retired at the end of his term, January 28, However, pursuant to a special part-time judicial appointment, he continued his work with the Superior Court Drug Court until May 17, Haile L. Alford -Appointed by former Governor Michael N. Castle and began service on July 17, ; she was the first African-American female in the history of Delaware to hold this office.
She died in office on August 11, Maxson Terry Jr. He died in office on August 15, John E. Babiarz Jr. Castle and began service on October 24, Judge Babiarz retired on January 24, James T. Vaughn Jr. Peggy L. Ableman -Appointed by former Governor Thomas R. Carper and began service on October 30, ; had previously served as Judge in Family Court; retired from Superior Court on December 8, Joseph R.
Jerome O. Herlihy -Appointed by former Governor Michael N. Castle and began service on February 21, ; had previously served as Chief Deputy Attorney General. Formally retired on May 18, However, pursuant to a special part-time judicial appointment, he continues his work with the Superior Court Drug Court.
Fred S. Robert B. John A. Parkins Jr. Richard R. Carper and began service on April 7, ; retired from Superior Court on May 1, Richard F. William L. Witham Jr. Andrea L. Markell and began service on June 5, ; had previously served as a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas; retired from Superior Court on June 7th, Carpenter Jr.
Carper and began service on October 18, ; had previously served as United States Attorney for the District of Delaware. Jan R. Calvin L. Scott Jr. Charles E. Markell and began service on December 7, , succeeding the Hon.
Eric M. Markell and began service on December 21, , succeeding the Hon. Paul R. Vivian L. Markell and began service on February 5, ; had previously served as Cabinet Secretary for the Delaware Children's Department.
Ferris W. Markell and began service on June 5, ; had previously served with the Delaware Department of Justice from to ; was chief prosecutor for Kent County; chief prosecutor for New Castle County; state prosecutor and chief deputy attorney general; served as an assistant public defender from until Markell and began service on April 10, ; he had previously served as an attorney for the Delaware State Senate from until ; as chief attorney for the Senate from until ; and, two terms as a member of Delaware's Preliminary Review Committee for the Board of Professional Responsibility; he replaced the Honorable William L.
Abigail M. Markell and began service on February 15, ; she had previously served as Master in Chancery on the Delaware Court of Chancery, a position she held until her appointment to the Superior Court. Carney Jr.
Young , who retired from the bench earlier this year. Sheldon K. Jane Brady , who retired from the bench earlier this year. Craig A. Henley Graves , who retired from the bench earlier this year. Meghan A. Parkins, Jr. Francis J. Mark H. Scott Bradley , who retired from the bench earlier this year. Robert H. Robinson, Jr. Stokes , who retired from the bench in January of this year. Reneta L. Alicia B. Howard -Appointed by Governor Thomas R.
Carper and began service September 26, Andrea M. Freud -Appointed by Governor Thomas R. Carper and began service October 19, Lynne M. Janine M. Salomone -Appointed by Governor Jack A. By James Vicini. Souter, 69, who has been on the court since , said in a brief letter to the White House that he intended to retire when the justices go on their summer recess at the end of next month.
I told him as much when we spoke. With a rare vacancy on the court looming, advocacy groups were already positioning for a possible confirmation battle before the U. Related Coverage. Obama will likely face heavy pressure to name another woman or the first Hispanic.
According to one expert source, the earliest Supreme Court confirmation hearings held in open session were those in for the nomination of Louis D. Brandeis to be an Associate Justice. Stone became the first Supreme Court nominee to appear in person and testify at his confirmation hearings. Neither the Brandeis nor the Stone hearings, however, served as binding precedents. Through the s, the Judiciary Committee often declined to hold open confirmation hearings or to invite Supreme Court nominees to testify.
In , two days of hearing were held on the nomination of Earl Warren to be Chief Justice. Hearings in on the Supreme Court nomination of John M.
Harlan marked the beginning of a practice, continuing to the present, of each Court nominee testifying before the Judiciary Committee. The appearance of Justice Fortas before the committee on July 16, "marked the first time that a nominee to the Chief Justiceship ever had been heard by the Committee and the first time, except for Justices serving on a recess appointment, that a sitting Justice ever had been heard.
Rehnquist in , also appeared before the committee. The Rehnquist hearings were the first hearings on a Chief Justice nominee to be opened to gavel-to-gavel television coverage. Reporting the Nomination. In modern practice, after holding hearings on a Supreme Court nomination, the Judiciary Committee meets in open session to determine what recommendation to "report" to the full Senate.
The committee may report the nomination favorably, negatively, or make no recommendation at all. Technically, the committee, if a majority of its members oppose confirmation, may decide not to report the nomination, to prevent the full Senate from considering the nominee. However, dating back at least to the s, the Judiciary Committee's traditional practice has been to report even those Supreme Court nominations that were opposed by a committee majority, thus allowing the full Senate to make the final decision on whether the nominee should be confirmed.
Historically, as well as in modern practice, lower court nominations such as to U. Reporting a Supreme Court nomination, in recent decades, almost always has included the transmittal of a written committee report, which presents the views both of committee members supporting and those opposing the nominee's confirmation. In such a fashion, the most recent Chief Justice nomination, of William H.
Rehnquist in , was reported favorably by the Judiciary Committee by a vote of , in a printed report, which included statements explaining the votes of the majority in favor and of the minority opposed to confirmation. By contrast, the previous Chief Justice nomination, of Warren E.
Burger in , was reported favorably by the committee, without a written report. During Senate consideration of the nomination, the absence of a written report from the Judiciary Committee prompted three Senators to express concerns.
They maintained it was important for the Senate, when considering an appointment of this magnitude, to be able to consult a written report from the Judiciary Committee that provided a breakdown of any recorded votes by the committee and an explanation of the committee's recommendation regarding the nominee. After the Judiciary Committee has reported a nomination, it is assigned an executive calendar number by the executive clerk of the Senate.
Criteria Used to Evaluate Nominees. Once the Senate begins debate on a Supreme Court nomination, many Senators typically will take the floor. Some, in their opening remarks, will underscore the importance of the Senate's "advice and consent" role, and the consequent responsibility to carefully determine the qualifications of a nominee before voting to confirm.
Invariably, each Senator who takes the floor will state for the record his or her reasons for voting in favor of or against the nominee's confirmation. The criteria used to evaluate a Supreme Court nominee are a personal, very individual matter for each Senator.
In recent decades, Senate debate on virtually every Supreme Court nomination has focused to some extent on the nominee's judicial philosophy, ideology, constitutional values, or known positions on specific legal controversies. When evaluating a Chief Justice nominee, Senators can be expected to apply criteria which focus on the unique demands of that office, in addition to standards they might apply to Supreme Court nominees in general.
This special focus was evident during the Senate's debate on the nomination of Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist to be Chief Justice. During the debate, various supporters and opponents of the nomination based their positions in significant part on standards they applied uniquely to a Chief Justice nominee. For instance, Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. D-DE , who opposed the nomination, expressed concern as to "whether Justice Rehnquist can serve effectively as a leader of the Court, and to my mind this does not mean whether or not he can be an effective administrator, or whether or not he will do that expeditiously.
By contrast, Senator Orrin G. Hatch R-UT , who supported the nominee, found that Justice Rehnquist more than measured up to the leadership qualities required in a Chief Justice:. When the President selects a sitting Associate Justice to be Chief Justice and a nominee to succeed the elevated Associate Justice, two nominations will be transmitted to the Senate.
If the President sends the nominations to the Senate at the same time, or within days of each other, the Senate can be expected -- but is not required -- to act on the Chief Justice nomination first. Historically, there have been four episodes three successful, one unsuccessful in which Associate Justices were nominated to be Chief Justice and accompanying nominations were made to fill the positions of the elevated Associate Justices. In reverse chronological order, these involved the following nominations of Associate Justices to be Chief Justice: William H.
Rehnquist in , Abe Fortas in , Harlan F. Stone in , and Edward D. White in In a fifth, much earlier episode, another Associate Justice, William Cushing in , was nominated, by President George Washington, to be Chief Justice, but Cushing's Chief Justice nomination to the Senate was unaccompanied by another nomination to fill the Associate Justice seat.
On the same day, September 17, the Senate considered and voted to confirm Rehnquist and then considered and voted to confirm Scalia. The previous instance in which a President tried in this case, unsuccessfully to use a Chief Justice vacancy to make two Court appointments involved President Lyndon B.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held 11 days of confirmation hearings on the two nominations, focusing most of the time on the Fortas nomination. The committee then reported only the Fortas nomination to the Senate, declining to take further action on the Thornberry nomination while the outcome of the Fortas nomination was in doubt.
In another two-appointment episode, however, the Senate acted on the Associate Justice nomination before the Chief Justice nomination. In keeping with a longstanding Senate practice of dispensing with confirmation hearings for a fellow Member, the Senate confirmed the Byrnes nomination immediately on June 12, the day of its receipt by the Senate, without first referring it to committee.
The nomination of Justice Stone to be Chief Justice took a longer route; it was confirmed almost two weeks later, on June 27, after confirmation hearings and being reported by the Judiciary Committee. Although the Senate had confirmed Senator Byrnes' nomination more quickly, his swearing-in as Associate Justice had to wait until the position was vacated by Justice Stone. In recognition of Justice White's service in the Senate prior to his appointment to the Court in , the Senate immediately, by voice vote, confirmed him to be Chief Justice, declining to refer the nomination of their former Senate colleague to committee.
Shortly thereafter, on December 15, the Van Devanter nomination was reported favorably by the Senate Judiciary Committee and, that same day, confirmed by the Senate by voice vote. When floor debate on a nomination comes to a close, the presiding officer puts the question of confirmation to a vote.
In doing so, the presiding officer typically states, "The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination of [nominee's name] of [nominee's state of residence] to be an Associate Justice [or Chief Justice] on the Supreme Court?
Since , every Senate vote on whether to confirm a Supreme Court nomination has been by roll call. Rehnquist's in , 18 received Senate floor votes on the question of whether to confirm. All 18, except for one the Senate's vote in vote rejecting the John Rutledge nomination , were in favor of confirmation. Of the 17 Chief Justice confirmations, 10 were by voice vote and seven by roll call.
Since then, the Chief Justice nominations of Warren E. Burger in and William H. Rehnquist were confirmed by roll call votes of and respectively. The three Chief Justice nominations which did not receive final Senate floor votes were, in the face of significant Senate opposition, withdrawn by the Presidents.
Historically, vote margins on Supreme Court nominations have varied considerably. Some recorded votes, either confirming or rejecting a nomination, have been close. Taney which was followed by a vote to confirm and the Senate's vote in on a motion to close debate on a motion to proceed to the Abe Fortas nomination. The vote on cloture fell short of the necessary super-majority to close debate, and three days later, the President, at Fortas's request, withdrew the nomination.
Filibusters and Motions to Close Debate. Senate rules place no general limits on how long floor consideration of a nomination or most other matters may last. Without such time limits, Senators opposing a Supreme Court nominee may be able to use extended debate or other delaying actions to prevent a vote from occurring.
The use of such dilatory actions is known as the filibuster. Since , however, supporters of nominations which encountered extended debate on the Senate floor have had available to them a procedure for placing time limits on that debate -- the motion for cloture. By adopting a cloture motion, the Senate may be able to ensure that a nomination will ultimately come to a final vote and be decided by a voting majority.
The majority currently required for cloture on most matters, including nominations, is three-fifths of the full membership of the Senate -- normally 60 Senators. Cloture motions have been made in debate on Supreme Court nominations on only three occasions, two involving Chief Justice nominations. The first use occurred in during debate concerning the nomination of Associate Justice Abe Fortas to be Chief Justice. Debate on that motion began the next day and continued on September 25, 26, 27, and 30, consuming more than 25 hours.
On October 1, the Senate failed to invoke cloture, by a vote of 45 in favor and 43 opposed, prompting President Lyndon B.
Johnson to withdraw the nomination. A cloture motion to end debate on a Court nomination occurred again in , when the Senate considered the nomination of William H. Rehnquist to be an Associate Justice.
Although the cloture motion failed by a vote, Rehnquist subsequently was confirmed. In , a motion was filed to close debate on a third Supreme Court nomination, this time of sitting Justice Rehnquist to be Chief Justice.
Supporters of the nomination mustered more than the three-fifths majority needed to close debate with the Senate voting for cloture , and Justice Rehnquist subsequently was confirmed as Chief Justice. Although use of the filibuster against Supreme Court nominations has been relatively rare in the past, the number of filibusters conducted against lower court nominations has increased dramatically in recent years. During the th Congress, extended debate was successfully used in the Senate to block confirmation votes on 10 of President George W.
Bush's 34 nominees to U. In response, in May of , leaders of the Senate's Republican majority announced their intention, if filibusters against nominations continued, to amend the chamber's rules to require the vote of only a simple Senate majority to close Senate debate on judicial nominations.
A Senate confrontation between the two parties over judicial filibusters was averted on May 23, , when a compromise agreement was reached by a coalition of seven Democratic and seven Republican Senators. As part of the agreement, the coalition's Democratic Senators pledged not to lend their support to filibusters against judicial nominations except under "extraordinary circumstances," while the Republican Senators in the coalition agreed not to support any change in the Senate rules to bar filibusters against judicial nominations, as long as the "spirit and continuing commitments made in this agreement" were kept by all of Senators in the coalition.
In recent years, some Senators have raised the possibility of a filibuster being conducted against a future Supreme Court nomination, particularly if a vacancy on the Court occurred during the presidency of George W. Such a strategy, however, would no longer be an option to opponents of the nominee if the Senate's rules, either prior to or during debate over the nomination, were modified to curtail use of filibusters against judicial nominations.
On September 5, , President George W. Bush announced he would nominate U. Court of Appeals Judge John G. Rehnquist, who had died two days earlier. The President cited Judge Roberts' "extraordinary career," his "striking ability as a lawyer and his natural gifts as a leader. The death of Chief Justice Rehnquist on September 3, , however, dramatically transformed the appointments equation for the Supreme Court, the President and the Senate.
As a result of the Chief Justice's passing, there were now two vacancies -- an immediate Chief Justice vacancy, and a prospective vacancy with the announced intention of Justice O'Connor to retire upon the confirmation of her successor.
For President Bush, the Rehnquist vacancy provided a new opportunity, if the President wished -- to appoint Judge Roberts to a different seat on the Court. In this vein, a newspaper reported in its September 5 morning editions that Judge Roberts was now being considered by the Bush White House for nomination to be Chief Justice:. Indeed, the very morning on which the above news report appeared, President Bush would announce his selection of Judge Roberts to be Chief Justice.
In doing so, the President also emphasized that, from his perspective, the Senate was "well along in the process of considering Judge Roberts' qualifications.
Hearings on the nomination of Judge Roberts for Chief Justice were held by the Judiciary Committee on September 12, 13, 14 and 15, and on September 22, the Judiciary Committee approved the Roberts nomination by a vote of , with three Democrats on the committee joining all 10 Republicans in favor of Judge Roberts. In the full Senate, Members will evaluate Judge Roberts' fitness to be Chief Justice according to their own criteria and concerns. In large part, their concerns will mirror the traditional concerns of Presidents with professional excellence, character, and leadership qualities in a Chief Justice nominee.
Some Senators, however, also will be concerned with the nominee's judicial philosophy or views on constitutional issues and how, in their view, the appointment might affect the Court's future direction on major legal and constitutional questions. It has been suggested, as noted earlier, that if a Supreme Court nominee were to prove controversial, a filibuster against the nomination would be a possibility, unless Senate rules were modified to curtail the use of filibusters against judicial nominees.
Under current Senate rules, the nomination would fall short of confirmation if, in the event of a filibuster, three-fifths of the Senate's full membership failed to vote in favor of closing debate. As also noted earlier, an agreement reached on May 23, , by a coalition of seven Democratic and seven Republican Senators averted what until then had seemed an imminent confrontation between the two parties over judicial filibusters.
As part of that agreement, the coalition's Democratic Senators pledged not to lend their support to filibusters against judicial nominations except under "extraordinary circumstances. If and when the Senate votes to close debate on the Chief Justice nomination, the next and ultimate test for appointment will be the Senate vote on whether to confirm.
A vote to confirm would require a simple majority of Senators present and voting. If the vote of the majority is to confirm, the confirmed nominee would then receive a commission from the President, officially appointing him to the Court. After receiving his commission, Judge Roberts would be sworn into office, becoming the 17th Chief Justice of the United States.
Table 1. Sources : William D. Bader and Roy M. Name in Italics -- Had earlier served as Associate Justice, prior to, but not at, time of nomination to be Chief Justice.
After taking his oath of office as an Associate Justice on Jan. Bush of her decision to retire from the Court "effective upon the nomination and confirmation of my successor.
The next day, the actual nomination document was signed and sent to the Senate, and the nomination of Judge Roberts to be Associate Justice was withdrawn. When Ellsworth took his judicial oath of office on March 8, , he was less than two months away from his 51st birthday. Hence, if confirmed by the Senate and sworn into office before mid-November , Judge Roberts, who was born on Jan.
Patrick J. Leahy, remarks in the Senate, Congressional Record , daily ed. William H. Frist delivered on Nov. See also the historic debate of almost 40 consecutive hours between Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats from evening of Nov.
From to the present, though, the number of Justice seats on the Court has been fixed at nine. Savage, Guide to the U. Supreme Court , 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, , p. Attendant to these technological advances are administrative and budgetary demands, as well as heightened expectations that extensive and timely Court-related information will be accessible to the public.
Among the people who work in the Supreme Court building are the key officers who carry out the Court's statutory duties: the Clerk, the Library, the Marshal, and the reporter of Decisions. Visitors and tourists to the Court now exceed one million annually. Since the terrorist attack of Sept.
Overseeing all of these matters is now an integral part of the Chief Justice's responsibilities. In Congress authorized the Chief Justice to employ an administrative assistant to perform duties as assigned by the Chief Justice. The Chief is also authorized to have the services of up to four law clerks, three secretaries, a messenger, and a government car and driver. The Judicial Conference of the United States is the policy-making body for the administration of the federal court system.
Theconference comprises the chief judges of the 13 courts of appeals, a district court judge from each of the 12 regional circuits, and the chief judge of the Court of International Trade. The Administrative Office of the United States Courts is the central administrative and budgetary support agency for the federal court system. The Federal Judicial Center is a support agency for the federal judiciary, which, through research and training programs for judges and judicial personnel, seeks to further improvements in judicial administration.
The Surveillance Court has jurisdiction to hear applications and grant orders for electronic surveillance anywhere within the United States. It also highlights legislative developments bearing directly on the federal judiciary and provides statistics on the federal court caseload over the past year. By statute, a justice may be assigned to more than one circuit, and two or more justices may be assigned to the same circuit.
The chief judge or circuit justice of the circuit where the need arises must present a certificate of necessity to the Chief Justice for such designation or assignment to a court of appeals or district court. The statute also explicitly states that, "No such designation or assignment shall be made to the Supreme Court. In , more than representatives from over 40 federal judicial systems around the world visited the Supreme Court to learn about the American judicial system. In Latin, primus means "first" and pares means "equals.
Judges with lifetime appointments include the Supreme Court's Justices and judges on the U. Court of International Trade. Morgan archived; available from D.
Steven Rutkus. The criterion of integrity, the committee booklet explains, concerns "the nominee's character and general reputation in the legal community," as well as "his or her industry and diligence. Rehnquist in Two others appointed to be Chief Justice, John Rutledge in and Charles Evans Hughes in , had earlier served as Associate Justices, but were not serving on the Court at the time of their Chief Justice appointments.
Constitution, is administered to Members of Congress and all executive and judicial officers. In , both oaths of office were administered to incoming Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist by retiring Chief Justice Warren E. Burger -- the constitutional oath at the White House, the judicial oath at the Supreme Court.
In , both oaths were administered to incoming Chief Justice Warren at the Supreme Court -- the constitutional oath by the senior Associate Justice in point of service, Hugo L. Black, and the judicial oath by the Clerk of the Court, Harold B. The table, among other things, indicates which nominees received Senate confirmation, which had prior service on the Court either as an Associate Justice or, in one instance, as Chief Justice , and which two declined their appointments after being confirmed.
Williams in , Caleb Cushing in , and Abe Fortas in For text of Jan. Hereafter cited as Marcus, Documentary History. For text of Feb. Article III, Section 1, provides, in part, that the "judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good Behaviour District Courts, the U.
Courts of Appeals, and the U. Benjamin Fletcher Wright, ed. Hereafter cited as Wright, The Federalist. The vote to impeach Chase, a staunch Federalist and outspoken critic of Jeffersonian Republican policies, was strictly along party lines.
In , after a Senate trial, Chase was acquitted after votes in the Senate fell short of the necessary two-thirds majority on any of the impeachment articles approved by the House.
Supreme Court , 2nd ed. Washington: Congressional Quarterly Inc, , p. Hereafter cited as Harris, Advice and Consent. Prior to , there was no statutory retirement provision for Supreme Court Justices, and the departure mode for every Justice, Associate as well as Chief, was either death in office or resignation with many Justices, for financial concerns, unable to afford to resign.
Six consecutive Chief Justices whose total service spanned the years to died in office. The first of four Chief Justices to retire, and thereby receive a government pension for his service, was William Howard Taft, in Hereafter cited as Ward, Deciding to Leave.
In a letter to President Herbert Hoover, dated Feb. Roosevelt, dated June 2, , stated his intention to retire effective July 1, President Roosevelt, F. Roosevelt , vol.
0コメント