1. In what ways is the court system better suited to protect the individual, than are the elected branches of government (such as Congress and the President; or the Mayor of NYC and the NYC City Assembly)? Give an example to illustrate your argument. One area in which the court system is better suited to protect the individual than the elected branches of the government are through the protection of individual rights through multiple court systems. This example can be shown through the Miranda v. Arizona Case, where Miranda was a man who was convicted of criminal activity he had done to another person. He was initially convicted and sentenced to prison when his own signed confession was used as a piece of evidence at a trial in the Arizona Court. However, Miranda made an appeal to the Arizona and U.S Supreme Court to exclude that piece of evidence since it had violated Miranda’s Fifth Amendment right to be protected against self-incrimination. Since Miranda did not waive his fifth-Amendment rights when putting in this confession and he wasn’t given the right to an attorney (which violates his sixth amendment rights), Miranda’s conviction was overturned (though he did still have to face charges for the crimes that he committed later down the line). Another way that the court system is better suited to protect the individual is through allowing the voices of minorities to be heard and potentially have their issues be solved if they have the proper claim and evidence for that issue. Minorities are typically drowned out it when it comes to dealing with a lot of issues and the other elected branches of the government tend to ignore them in order to continue pursuing things that would allow continue to help the wealthy, so actually having an area where they can have their problems solved (should the proper circumstances be met) speaks volumes as to how significant it is to have a court system available to them. 

2. Think about how federal judges get to become judges – unlike Presidents, Mayors and members of Congress (and other legislatures), they are not elected, but rather appointed. Many Americans have thus called the federal courts system, and especially the Supreme Court, anti-democratic places in our government. Do you agree that the Supreme Court, for example, is an anti-democratic part of our government? What could be the reason for this way of choosing judges in federal courts? (HINT: think about our discussion of “Federalist #10”, and which social class plays a leading role in our government system.) I do agree that the Supreme Court is an anti-democratic part of our government, though not fully. The reason why I say its not fully anti-democratic is because of the fact that the Supreme Court judges do take into consideration the feelings of interest groups and the public when it comes to their judgment on their cases. However, a good chunk of the things that surround the Supreme Court are very anti-democratic, such as how solicitor generals are the ones who decide which cases are appealed from the lower courts and is the one who has to approve the cases that are presented, them being the ones who determine that the government will take on a case and can recommend that the Supreme Court justices decline to hear a case if desired. Even though solicitor generals don’t have unlimited power and the Supreme Court justices can ignore their recommendations, they more often than not follow them even when they aren’t expected to. On top of this, the Supreme Court Justices themselves are appointed to their positions by the federal government themselves (nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate) and not the public, meaning that the Supreme Court justices who were appointed are most likely going to be of a similar social class to those that appointed them, that being the wealthy social class. As seen the federalist #10 papers, since the government believes that the wealthy are the ones who deserve to have their wealth and rights protected due to earning it through their intelligence and that poor people are not capable of earning that wealth since they aren’t intelligent, the government will continue to focus on protecting the rights and desires of those who matter and deserve it in their eyes, which are the wealthy social class. Since the Supreme Court justices, are a group of people that can only be chosen by the federal government themselves with no influence from the public whatsoever, that means that the federal government can use the Supreme Court as another method of protecting and supporting the wealthy, since the Supreme Court Justices will be composed of people that are also apart of the wealthy social class and not the poor, working class.