【美国精神】第38期

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Explanation:

  Everybody makes mistakes, but what happens if it is a judge (or a person who makes legal decisions in a court)? Imagine that you are in a lawsuit¹ (or a problem or argument that has to be talked about in court) and the judge rules (or decides) against you, but you still think that you are right. Your next step is an appeal, which is an official document asking a higher, more important court to rule on your lawsuit. And if that appeal fails (or doesn’t work), you might make another appeal to an even higher court. Eventually, however, there are no higher courts because you have arrived at the Supreme² Court, which is often called “the highest (or most important)

court in the United States.”

  The Supreme Court doesn’t agree to rule on all cases (or lawsuits). The Supreme Court receives more than 7,000 petitions (or requests to rule on a case) each year, but it accepts fewer than 100 of them. That is because the Supreme Court has limited time and people to do the work, and it wants to use them to rule on only the most important cases. In particular, it wants to rule on cases that are related to how federal laws are interpreted (or understood), especially when they are related to the U.S. Constitution (or the country’s most important legal document).

  The Supreme Court’s cases are very far-reaching, meaning that they have a lot of influence in American culture and law. Some of their cases are well known to most Americans. For example, one famous case known as Brown v. Board of Education made it illegal to have separate schools for white students and black students. Another famous case known as Roe³ v. Wade⁴ made abortions⁵ (the practice of ending a pregnancy⁶ so the baby is never born) legal.

  The Supreme Court meets in the Supreme Court Building in the center of Washington, DC. The building is sometimes called the “Temple of Justice” where a temple is a holy place that people build for their gods.

 

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