1. Respond to this forum post. Add something, agree, disagree, etc. Just like last week. Min 150 words with 1 citation.

The Supreme Court determines which cases to adjudicate on a basis of if it involves an issue of federal law or if are in the jurisdiction of the federal court (2). The Supreme Court will also rule on cases of impeachment that involve the President, Vice President or political parties that are violating the Constitution (1).

The Lesson says that the Supreme Court will be considered on the following factors, if it was "decided on differently by various lower courts", "Constitutional issues", "disputes between states or states and federal government", "conflicts of exiting Supreme Court ruling", the significance of the case and Solicitor General is pressuring the Supreme Court" (3).

They have a rule of four as we learned from the lesson; at least four of the justices must decide to review the case (3). To get to the Supreme Court you most first have gone through the lower courts and appealed the decisions of them, then appeal the Supreme Court where they will decide to see review a case (2). On average the Supreme Court will receive 10,000 requests, but usually only see close to 80 of them (2).

I decided to write about the case of Kelo Vs. New London, Connecticut, a stunning ruling of a 5-4 opinion by Justice Stevens (4). SusetteKelo decided to take New London to court because they wanted to evict her and others off the land they lived on for economic development, she received her notice the day before thanksgiving, 2000 (5). Kelo fought for her Fifth Amendment right, "which guaranteed the government will not take private property for public use with out just compensation" owners fought on the grounds that selling to private developers is not public use (3).

The reason that the Supreme Court took this case is the fact that it was a Constitutional issue and involved citizens against the state. This ruling lead to "eight state supreme courts and 43 state legislatures to strengthen protections for property rights" that was good on them (5). Reading up on it, it turns out that the Fort Trumbull project failed miserable and has cost taxpayers almost 80 million (5). So when all said and done, these people had their Fifth Amendment rights infringed on and they have to look at a empty field where their house use to be.

2. Respond to this forum post. Add something, agree, disagree, etc. Just like last week. Min 150 words with 1 citation.

The forum assignment this week asks us how the Supreme Court determines which cases to adjudicate and why. From the Power Point presentation, we know the Supreme Court receives over 8000 cases each year and that 95 percent of those are through the appeals. From our lesson this week we also learned that they only try to adjudicate 100 per year.

This is due to the fact that the Supreme Court is so small, only 9 Justices total. The answer to why they have to determine which cases to handle should be obvious. The Supreme Court is like a bottle neck, they are the very top of the judicial system, the final decision on the law of the land.

Based on the numbers, you can see that they need to review all and only choose the most important ones, the ones with the greatest merit. Some circumstances they will handle are when the Constitution comes into play, rare cases dealing with Congress and the President (such as Watergate) and also when state and federal courts have disagreements.

The majority of the cases will be major circumstances dealing with Constitution rights. Chances are probably very high that they will never adjudicate a petty crime such as misdemeanor shoplifting from your local Wal-Mart.
The case I have chosen to give an explaination as to why they accepted it for adjudication is Hiibel v. Nevada. There are two reasons why I specifically chose this case.

First, I am from Nevada originally and I love home. The other reason is because it deals with what used to be my career as a law enforcement officer. I believe that this case never should have went all the way to the Supreme Court. However, the State and the Circuit courts differed. Also, I think the Supreme Court decided to adjudicate this to reaffirm their stance on a prior and similar case, Terry v. Ohio. You can find more information on these two cases in my references.