The
Chief Justice of the United States is the head of
the United States federal
court system (the judicial branch of
the federal
government of the United States) and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of
the United States
. He is one of nine Supreme Court justices;
the other eight are the
Associate
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Although
commonly done, it is incorrect to use the term "Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court."
The Chief Justice is the highest judicial officer in the country.
He acts as a
chief
administrative officer for the federal courts and appoints the
director of the
Administrative
Office of the United States Courts. He also serves as a
spokesman for the judicial branch, taking on some responsibilities
such as appearing before
congressional committees to advocate
for higher pay for
federal
judges.
The Chief Justice leads the business of the Supreme Court. In the
case of an
impeachment
trial of a
President, which has occurred
twice in
American history, the
Chief Justice presides over the Senate. In modern tradition, the
Chief Justice also has the duty of administering the
oath of
office of the President of the United States, but this is not
required by the
Constitution or any other
law.
The first Chief Justice was
John Jay. The
seventeenth and current Chief Justice is
John G. Roberts, Jr., who was nominated by
President
George W. Bush and took office on September 29, 2005
upon
his
confirmation by the
Senate
on a vote of 78-22 for confirmation. The salary of the Chief
Justice is set by Congress, and it is slightly higher than that of
the Associate Justices. , it is $217,400 per year.
Origin, title, and appointment to the post
The United States Constitution does not explicitly establish the
office of Chief Justice, but presupposes its existence with a
single reference in
Article I, Section 3, Clause 6: "When the President of the
United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside." Nothing
more is said in the Constitution regarding the office, including
any further distinction between the Chief Justice and
Associate Justices of
the Supreme Court, who are never mentioned as such in the
Constitution.
The office is often incorrectly referred to as "Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court." However, specifies the official title as "Chief
Justice of the United States". The official title changed at the
suggestion of the sixth Chief Justice,
Salmon P. Chase, who wished to emphasize the Court's
role as a coequal branch of government. By contrast, the other
eight members of the Court are officially Associate Justices of the
Supreme Court of the United States, not "Associate Justices of the
United States." In fact, the Chief Justice is the only member of
the Court to whom the Constitution refers as a "Justice," and only
in Article I.
Article III
of the Constitution refers to all members of the Supreme Court (and
of other federal courts) simply as "Judges."
The Chief Justice, like all other federal judges, is nominated by
the
President and
confirmed to sit on the Court by the Senate. The U.S. Constitution
states that all justices of the Court "shall hold their offices
during good behavior," meaning that the appointments only end when
a justice dies in office, resigns, or is impeached by the House of
Representatives and convicted by the Senate.
Some chief justices, like
William
Rehnquist, were elevated by the President while serving on the
bench as an Associate Justice. Justices who are elevated to the
position of Chief Justice from that of Associate Justice must again
be confirmed by the Senate (a rejection by the Senate, however,
does not end their tenure as an Associate Justice—it merely
precludes them from serving as Chief Justice). Most chief justices,
including Roberts, have been nominated to the highest position on
the Court without any previous experience on the Court; indeed
some, like
Earl Warren, were selected
without any prior judicial experience.
Eighteen people have been nominated for Chief Justice and confirmed
by the Senate: seventeen served (listed below).
William Cushing was chosen in January 1796
but declined the office;
Oliver
Ellsworth served instead. The Senate subsequently confirmed
John Jay to replace Ellsworth, though Jay
declined to resume his former high office, citing both the burden
of riding circuit and its impact on his health, and his perception
of the Court's lack of prestige;
John
Marshall was nominated and confirmed shortly afterward.
Duties
Along with the duties of the associate justices, the Chief Justice
has several unique duties.
Impeachment trials
Article I, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that the
Chief Justice shall preside over impeachment trials of the
President of the United States in the U.S. Senate. Two Chief
Justices,
Salmon P. Chase and
William Rehnquist, have had the duty of
presiding over the trial in the Senate that follows an
impeachment of the President – Chase in 1868
over the proceedings against President
Andrew Johnson and Rehnquist in 1999 over the
proceedings against President
Bill
Clinton.
Further, the Chief Justice would preside over the impeachment trial
of the
Vice
President if, under the terms of the
25th
Amendment, the Vice President is serving as
Acting President.
However, no Vice President has been impeached (though
Spiro Agnew resigned under threat of
impeachment), and none has been Acting President for more than a
few hours. Barring that exception, the Vice President would be in
the awkward position of presiding over his own impeachment trial as
President of the Senate
unless he were to voluntarily absent himself and leave the
President pro
tempore to preside.
Seniority
The Chief Justice is considered to be the justice with most
seniority, independent of the number of
years of service in the Court. As a result, the Chief Justice
chairs the conferences where cases are discussed and voted on by
the justices. The Chief Justice normally speaks first, and so has
influence in framing the discussion.
The Chief Justice sets the agenda for the weekly meetings where the
justices review the petitions for
certiorari, to decide whether to hear or deny
each case. The Supreme Court agrees to hear less than one percent
of the cases petitioned to it. While Associate Justices may append
items to the weekly agenda, in practice this initial agenda-setting
power of the Chief Justice has significant influence over the
direction of the court.
Despite the seniority and added prestige, the Chief Justice's vote
carries no more legal weight than those of the other eight
justices. In any decision rendered, he has no legal authority to
overrule the verdicts or interpretations of the other eight judges
or tamper with them. However, in any vote, the most senior justice
in the majority decides who will write the Opinion of the Court.
Since the Chief Justice is always considered the most senior
member, if he or she is in the majority then the Chief Justice
decides who will write the Opinion of the Court. This power to
determine the author of the Court's opinion (including the option
to select oneself) allows a Chief Justice who is in the majority to
influence the historical record. Two justices in the same majority,
given the opportunity, might write very different majority opinions
(as evidenced by many concurring opinions); being assigned the
opinion may also cement the vote of an Associate who is viewed as
only marginally in the majority (a tactic that was reportedly used
to some effect by
Earl Warren). A Chief
Justice who knows the Associate Justices can therefore do much—by
the simple act of selecting the justice who writes the Opinion of
the Court—to affect the "flavor" of the opinion, which in turn can
affect the interpretation of that opinion in cases before lower
courts in the years to come. It is said that some chief justices,
notably Earl Warren and
Warren Burger,
sometimes switched votes to a majority they disagreed with to be
able to use this prerogative of the Chief Justice to dictate who
would write the opinion.
Oath of office
The Chief Justice typically administers the
oath of office at the
inauguration of the President of the United
States. This is a traditional rather than constitutional
responsibility of the Chief Justice since law empowers any federal
and state judge, as well as
notaries
public, to administer
oaths and
affirmations. The Constitution does not require
that the oath be administered by anyone, simply that it be taken by
the President.
If the
Chief Justice is ill or incapacitated, the oath is usually
administered by the next senior member of the Supreme
Court
. Seven times, someone other than the Chief
Justice of the United States administered the oath of office to the
President.
Robert
Livingston, as Chancellor of the State of New York (the state's
highest ranking judicial office), administered the oath of office
to
George Washington at his first
inauguration; there was no Chief Justice of the United States, nor
any other federal judge prior to their appointments by President
Washington in the months following his inauguration.
William Cushing, an Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court, administered Washington's second oath of office in
1793.
Calvin Coolidge's father, a
notary public, administered the oath to his son after the death of
Warren Harding. This, however, was contested upon Coolidge's return
to Washington and his oath was re-administered by Judge
Adolph A. Hoehling, Jr. of the
District of
Columbia Supreme Court.
United States District Court
Judge
Sarah T. Hughes administered the oath to
Lyndon Johnson after the John F. Kennedy
assassination.
John Tyler,
Millard Fillmore,
Chester A. Arthur, and
Theodore Roosevelt's initial oaths
reflected the unexpected nature of their taking office.
In addition, the Chief Justice ordinarily administers the oath of
office to newly appointed and confirmed associate justices, whereas
the senior associate justice will normally swear in a new Chief
Justice.
Other duties
The Chief Justice also:
Unlike Senators and Representatives who are constitutionally
prohibited from holding any other "office of trust or profit" of
the United States or of any state while holding their congressional
seats, the Chief Justice and the other members of the federal
judiciary are not barred from serving in other positions. Chief
Justice John Jay served as a diplomat to negotiate the so-called
Jay Treaty (aka The Treaty of London of
1794), and Chief Justice
Earl Warren
chaired the
The President's Commission
on the Assassination of President Kennedy. As described above,
the Chief Justice holds office in the Smithsonian Institution and
the Library of Congress.
Disability or vacancy
Under
28 USC
3, when the Chief Justice is unable to discharge his
functions, or that office is vacant, his duties are carried out by
the most senior associate justice who is able to act, until the
disability or vacancy ends.
List of Chief Justices
§
Recess appointment, later rejected by the Senate on December
15, 1795
¤
Previously served as an Associate
Justice, but at a time disconnected to service as Chief
Justice
°
Elevated from Associate Justice
Also served as U.S.President
†
Died in office
No. |
Chief Justice |
Image |
Term of Office |
Nominated by President |
1 |
John Jay |
 |
October 19, 1789–June 29, 1795 |
George
Washington |
2 |
John Rutledge §, ¤ |
 |
July 1, 1795–December 28, 1795 |
3 |
Oliver Ellsworth |
 |
March 8, 1796–December 15, 1800 |
4 |
John Marshall |
 |
February 4, 1801–July 6, 1835† |
John Adams (F) |
5 |
Roger Brooke Taney |
 |
March 28, 1836–October 12, 1864† |
Andrew Jackson (D) |
6 |
Salmon Portland Chase |
 |
December 15, 1864–May 7, 1873† |
Abraham Lincoln (R) |
7 |
Morrison Remick Waite |
 |
March 4, 1874–March 23, 1888† |
Ulysses S. Grant (R) |
8 |
Melville Weston Fuller |
 |
October 8, 1888–July 4, 1910† |
Grover Cleveland (D) |
9 |
Edward Douglass White
° |
 |
December 19, 1910–May 19, 1921† |
William Howard Taft
(R) |
10 |
William Howard Taft
 |
 |
July 11, 1921–February 3, 1930 |
Warren G. Harding (R) |
11 |
Charles Evans Hughes ¤ |
 |
February 24, 1930–June 30, 1941 |
Herbert Hoover (R) |
12 |
Harlan Fiske Stone ° |
 |
July 3, 1941–April 22, 1946† |
Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) |
13 |
Frederick Moore Vinson |
 |
June 24, 1946–September 8, 1953† |
Harry S. Truman (D) |
14 |
Earl Warren |
 |
October 5, 1953–June 23, 1969 |
Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) |
15 |
Warren Earl Burger |
 |
June 23, 1969–September 26, 1986 |
Richard Nixon (R) |
16 |
William Hubbs Rehnquist ° |
 |
September 26, 1986–September 3, 2005† |
Ronald Reagan (R) |
17 |
John Glover Roberts,
Jr. |
 |
September 29, 2005–present |
George W. Bush (R) |
|
See also
Notes
- US Government Info, salary
- See for example the description of the behind-the-scenes
maneuvering after Roe v. Wade was argued the first time,
in Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong's The Brethren.
- Library of Congress. " Presidential Inaugurations: Presidential Oaths of
Office."
- Excerpt from Coolidge's autobiography.
- Prologue: Selected Articles