Supreme Court Justices - Free Essay Sample

Introduction

The Solicitor General's influence has had a tremendous impact on the Supreme Court for some time. It is believed that this influence has something to do with the federal government's power, yet no direct evidence can prove beyond doubt that this is indeed true (Mcguire, 1998). The Solicitor General's offices were primarily tasked with supervision and government litigation in the US Supreme Court (Justice, 2020). The office has had a series of successes in both Republican and Democratic administrations over a period of time. Scholars have had difficulty trying to trace the Solicitor General's office's advantage to the US Supreme court, making it a very successful litigant (Mcguire, 1998). This essay will attempt to discuss if the Solicitor General's office influences the US Supreme Court and outline its limitations.

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Advantages

To ascertain if the Solicitor general has been victorious due to the influence of the Court by the executive, it is essential to look at the advantages that the Solicitor General's office has. Though there is no literature to prove why the Solicitor General's popularity as Supreme Court leading practitioner, the fact remains that there is something they use to make sure their litigation record continues. Firstly, one of this trend's interpretations is that the Solicitor General's office's success is due to its forms the Supreme Court's leading government litigator (Mcguire, 1998, p. 506).

According to the US Supreme Court, the Solicitor General's office has had so many litigations on behalf of the US Government; hence, the Court expects repeated litigations and sees the Solicitor's office as a strong opponent, consequently embracing prior expectations favoring the executive. Due to this assertion, most scholars have concluded that the primary reason for the trust between the Solicitor General's office and the US Supreme Court is that the office of the Solicitor General professionalism and expertise can provide the US Supreme Court with expertise in many fields of the law and can often aid the Court in solving problems concerning the importance of a given case (Mcguire, 1998, p. 507). This is because the Solicitor General's office has the talent, resource, experience, and prestige to work for both the executive and the Supreme Court. This assertion, though, is limited by the fact that there are no empirical proofs. The literature on the subject still provides very little guidance on the issue. Even worse, there is no empirical evidence to support the claim that the Solicitor General's superior work and expertise are what guarantees its success.

Numerous Litigations

The Solicitor General successfully has numerous litigations because the office speaks with unique authority (Mcguire, 1998, p. 510). This assertion purports a special relationship between the office of Solicitor General and the Supreme Court. This claim remains strong only when the influence of the executive remains strong (Segal, 1996). The fact that the Solicitor General tops the ranking of litigators consistently could mean that the executive hold a position slightly higher or does better than the other arms of the government. Consequently, this assures the office of the Solicitor General consecutive victories in the Supreme Court. However, this perspective also has a downside. For instance, the Solicitor General is just one of the many litigators who enjoy the same experience, expertise, and favor from the Supreme Court. Therefore, it is not necessarily enough to make the Solicitor General want consecutive victories in the Supreme Court.

Additionally, another claim is that the Supreme Court favors litigants of higher status like the Solicitor General. There have been numerous claims that the courts favor the 'haves' over the 'have nots' as a rule (Sheehan, 1992). Through a research illustration to compare the theoretical advantage between the litigants, it was logically obvious that the litigants' larger positive values raised the probability of the Solicitor succeeding while adverse outcomes reduced the likelihood of being considered next time, hence favoring the respondents. The limitation of this claim is that it might bring about the notion that the Supreme Court favors the federal government because it is the federal government (Mcguire, 1998, p. 521). This notion would consequently affect the results of the Solicitors' measurements on the Supreme Court affecting justice parameter due to favoritism which is against any justice body.

On the other hand, if we were to consider the argument that there is no remarkable influence that the Solicitors General has on the Supreme Court, but just the same advantage shared among all expert lawyers in the field, several factors can still be considered. Firstly, there is an argument that the frequency with which a lawyer appears before the Supreme Court cannot be regarded as a gauge of the lawyer's litigation capability (Mcguire, 1998, p. 511). This supposition tries to view the Solicitor General's office as of nearly the same scale of experience as all the other practicing advocates hence nullifies the claim that the fact that the Solicitor General office is involved in more litigations still does not prove their victories and successful track record in the Supreme Court. The primary reason for this is that the claim's supporters say that it is an unsatisfactory gauge of the lawyer's litigation capability. The supposition has its limitations, though, the major one is that through experience, lawyers' direct participation before the justice system has witnessed numerous lawyers gaining some degree of expertise. Furthermore, lawyers that bring a more considerable wealth of litigation experience to the Supreme Court or any other court become repeat players and are sure to enjoy some benefit from the Court systems.

Conclusion

Another argument that counters the Solicitor General's influence on the Supreme Court is that the executive's expertise has no unique effects (Mcguire, 1998, p. 520). This claim argues that none is specific to the Solicitor General's office despite the administrative, general advocacy and influence to the Supreme Court. Even though the Solicitor General's office enjoys the rewards of having experience in the Supreme Court, the claim purports that this reward is no greater than that of any other lawyer who advocates in the Supreme Court. Therefore, this means that the federal government's success in the Supreme Court is not tied to its general amount of experience but to its advantage compared to the opposition they face in the Supreme Court.

Therefore, in summary, both argument supporting the Solicitor General influencing and not influencing the Supreme Court have their merit points and limitations. The significant limitation of this influence is the lack of empirical evidence to prove most of the assertions brought forth. For instance, it isn't easy to prove that litigators from Solicitor General's office are more experienced than all the other litigators. Though they are involved more than any other litigator, there is still no convincing proof. I think the only advantage that the Solicitor General has is its experience and litigation expertise. This means, therefore, the litigation carried out by the Solicitor's office and that by other litigators differs in degree, but it's of the same kind. In conclusion, therefore, the influence that the Solicitor General's office has on the Supreme Court is minimal, and the two are dependent due to trade of information and expertise. This is only limited by the fact that there is no enough literature to support this assertion conclusively.

References

Justice, U.D. (2020, December 13). Office of the Solicitor General. United States Government: https://www.justice.gov/osg

Mcguire, K. (1998). Explaining executive success in the US Supreme Court. Political Research Quarterly Vol 51, pp. 505-526.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/106591299805100210

Segal, J., & Spaeth, H.J. (1996). The influence of the Stare Desis on the vote of the United States Supreme Court Justices. American Journal of Political Science, pp. 971-1003.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2111738

Sheehan, R.S., Mishler, W., & Songer, D.R. (1992). Ideology, status, and the differential success of direct parties before the Supreme Court. The American Political Science Review, pp.464-471.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2111738?seq=1.