I learned a lot from the videos on the Supreme Court history. I honestly did not know much at all about the Supreme court except that they went over cases and made bigger decisions here in the U.S. I was surprised by the beginning of their history, they had a much smaller presence inside of another building and many people did not respect them at first. It started with John Marshall who began to shape the way it is today. However, 20 years later with the Dred Scott case in 1857, many people were upset by the decision and it hurt the power of the courts. I also didn't realize how demanding of a job it was.
Many of the judges in the video talked about how they received thousands of cases a day, and had a lot of pressure to research and use the correct process in order to go into court with a decision. Some even joked it takes 3-7 years to adjust to the job. Because there are so many cases and it's a demanding job, they are on a very crunched timeline. The lawyers have 30 minutes to present, and the judges have 4 weeks to write the opinion, which they often draft and redraft many times before release. I thought this all was interesting and I didn't realize how much work it really was.
I kind of knew but also didn't know the extent was, how open and public the courts are. Once decisions are made, the press then race to condense the very long opinion statements into something more manageable they can release to the public so they understand the decision and the reasons. Overall I was amazed at all the work they have to do in such a rushed time period, it has definitely increased my personal respect for them.
Something from the video that I found had an interesting relation to current day was how the judges said it was like a tradition for them to all shake hands before starting their cases. In today's world with Covid, handshaking has been stopped in many environments and I can't help but wonder how that has affected the way they do their tradition and if they adapted it or not.
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