Why are there justices on the US Supreme Court?

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States. Its membership currently consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices. The justices are nominated by the President of the United States and appointed after confirmation by the United States Senate.

Justices of the Supreme Court have life tenure1 and receive a salary which is currently set at $223,500 per year for the chief justice and at $213,900 per year for each associate justice. 23 On August 7, 2010, Justice Elena Kagan became the 112th justice to serve on the Court. The Supreme Court was created in 1789 by Article III of the United States Constitution, which stipulates that the "judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court" together with any lower courts Congress may establish.

1 Congress organized the Court that year with the passage of the Judiciary Act of 1789. It specified the Court's original and appellate jurisdiction, created thirteen judicial districts, and fixed the number of justices at six (one chief justice and five associate justices). Since the passage of the Judiciary Act, Congress has occasionally altered the size of the Supreme Court, historically in response to the country's own expansion in size.

Membership was decreased in 1801 to five, then increased to seven members in 1807, to nine in 1837, and to ten in 1863. It was then reduced to seven in 1866. In 1869, Congress set the Court's size to nine members, where it has remained since.

7 While the justices of the Supreme Court are appointed for life, some choose to leave the Court before their death: a total of 54 have retired or resigned. The average age of newly appointed justices is about 53 years old. Historically, the average length of service on the Court has been less than 15 years; however, since 1970 the average length of service has increased to about 26 years.

The following lists all justices aside from Edwin Stanton, who died before taking office. The graphic below is a timeline depicting the progression of the justices in the United States Supreme Court. Information regarding their seat number, predecessors, successors and fellow justices, as well as their tenure on the court can be gleaned from the timeline.

Additionally, the progression of presidents (with the number of justices they nominated) is shown at the top of the timeline to give a more detailed historical context. Three presidents (Taft, F. Roosevelt, Reagan), in addition to successfully nominating several justices to the court, elevated an associate justice to chief justice.

These elevations are counted as nominations, and are designated with a caret (^). Several justices began their terms on the bench after the inauguration of a new president. This graphical representation of the progression of the High Court allows some otherwise obscure information to be easily noted.

For example, Joseph Story (in the early 19th century) and Stephen Breyer (in the late 20th and early 21st centuries) are each noteworthy for serving over 11 years as the court's most junior member. Samuel Blatchford (in the 1880s) served the third longest as the court's most junior member at less than 6 years. Thomas Johnson (1790s), Robert Trimble (1820s) and Arthur Goldberg (1960s) are the only justices to leave the court while still being the court's most junior member.

William Rehnquist is unique in that he is the only justice to witness all of his more senior justices leave the court, without witnessing any of his more junior justice leave the court. Hugo Black, in addition to witnessing all eight of his predecessors leave the court, saw fourteen more junior members replaced on the court, meaning he worked beside a record thirty justices.