Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the United States of America, is the head of the Judicial Branch of the Federal Government.

Other functions

Each Justice on the Supreme Court is assigned to at least one of the United States' thirteen judicial circuits. The Chief Justice is usually allotted to the District of Columbia Circuit, the Federal Circuit and the Fourth Circuit; each Associate Justice is allotted to one or two judicial circuits.

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Under the Judiciary Act of 1789, each Justice was required to "ride circuit," or to travel within the assigned circuit and consider cases alongside local judges. This practice, however, encountered opposition from many Justices, who complained about the difficulty of travel. Moreover, several individuals opposed it on the grounds that a Justice could not be expected to be impartial in an appeal if he had previously decided the same case while riding circuit. Circuit riding, however, was abolished in 1891. Now, the duty of a Supreme Court Justice in this regard is limited to hearing emergency petitions in the relevant circuit and some other routine tasks like addressing certain requests for extensions of time.

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