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. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. From 1789 until 1866, the office was known as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
The Chief Justice is the highest judicial officer in the country, and acts as a chief administrative officer for the federal courts and appoints the director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. The Chief Justice also serves as a spokesperson for the judicial branch.
The Chief Justice leads the business of the Supreme Court. He or she presides over oral arguments before the Court. When the Court renders an opinion, the Chief Justice—when in the majority—decides who writes the Court's opinion. The Chief Justice also has significant agenda-setting power over the Court's meetings. In the case of an impeachment of a President of the United States, which has occurred twice, the Chief Justice presides over the trial in the Senate. In modern tradition, the Chief Justice has the ceremonial duty of administering the oath of office of the President of the United States.
The first Chief Justice was John Jay. The 17th and current Chief Justice is John G. Roberts, Jr.
Read more about Chief Justice Of The United States: Origin, Title, and Appointment To The Post, Duties, Disability or Vacancy, List of Chief Justices
Famous quotes containing the words chief justice of, united states, chief justice, chief, justice, united and/or states:
“On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children’s children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody’s image. It was the land of the unexpected, of unbounded hope, of ideals, of quest for an unknown perfection. It is all the more unfitting that we should offer ourselves in images. And all the more fitting that the images which we make wittingly or unwittingly to sell America to the world should come back to haunt and curse us.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“Chief Justice. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.
Falstaff. I would it were otherwise. I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children’s children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The doctrine of equality!... But there exists no more poisonous poison: for it seems to be preached by justice itself, while it is the end of justice.... “Equality for equals, inequality for unequals”Mthat would be the true voice of justice: and, what follows from it, “Never make equal what is unequal.””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Human life in common is only made possible when a majority comes together which is stronger than any separate individual and which remains united against all separate individuals. The power of this community is then set up as “right” in opposition to the power of the individual, which is condemned as “brute force.””
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“With steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old “central ideas” of the Republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us—God is with us. We shall again be able not to declare, that “all States as States, are equal,” nor yet that “all citizens as citizens are equal,” but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that “all men are created equal.””
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)