Talk:Chief Justice of the United States

Nature of Politics?

The Chief Justice normally speaks first, and so has great influence in framing the discussion. Is there any evidence or research that addresses this issue? It seems like a very not encyclopedial at the moment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.187.62.157 (talk) 16:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It is mentioned and discussed in Armstrong and Woodward's The Brethren. Magidin (talk) 17:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Who protects the Chief Justice?

Is this a secret service job, or US Marshall? or is he on his own?

According to the Secret Service page, [1], they do not. The U.S. Marshall's page [2] does identify protecting judges as part of their duties, and explicitly lists "163 instances of personal protective services to Supreme Court Justices" for the fiscal year 2002. However, this seems to be provided only as needed and not ongoing, since they only list four on-going long-term details, three in New York and one in Virginia. Magidin 16:52, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Presides over Vice President's impeachment?

I noticed an edit made a short time ago on Chief Justice of the United States where it was written wrote:

• Presides when the Senate tries impeachments of the President of the United States and the Vice-President of the United States.

In particular, the phrase "and the Vice-President of the United States" was added. I looked through the U.S. Constitution and Impeachment#United States and neither seemed to explicitly indicate that the Chief Justice would preside over a VP's impeachment proceedings.

From the U.S. Constitution:

Article I, Section 3, Clause 6: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

I have no particular reason to doubt it is the case however, so I was hoping someone could provide a source. Thanks! --Jewbacca 23:37, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

From Rule IV of the United States Senate's Impeachment Rules (emphasis added):

When the President of the United States or the Vice President of the United States, upon whom the powers and duties of the office of President shall have devolved, shall be impeached, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States shall preside.

Note that this rule only applies to the Vice President when the Vice President is Acting President. Otherwise, if the Vice President is being tried for impeachment while he is not acting as President, precedents would dictate that the President pro tempore would preside.

I haven't found any other acts/rules which would say otherwise, so I will edit accordingly. Pmadrid 05:22, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I also have not been able to find a governing rule; however, I find this result somewhat odd. The reason for having the Chief Justice preside at a Presidential impeachment is to avoid a conflict of interest, since a presiding Vice President would assume office in the event of a conviction. In the same way, the conviction of the Vice President would elevate the President pro tempore in the order of succession and Senatorial precedence. Though this elevation would only be temporary (since the 25th Amdt. allows for appointments in the event of a Vice Presidential vacancy), it would seem a temptation weighing on the impartiality of the President pro tempore. I will continue to research. Xoloz 17:40, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

• As you say, such an "ascension" would be quite temporary. Furthermore, as I can tell you already know, this would not place the PPT even next in line; the Speaker remains between him and the oval office. Short of a plot on the part of the PPT to dispose of both the President and the Speaker (and needing to do so in a matter of weeks, if not days), the "temptation" would appear to be minimal.

Suffice it to say that, in the unlikely happenstance that such a series of events did occur, methinks that an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee, as a prologue to impeachment hearings, would be quick to arise.

Still, such things are fun to think of. Perhaps now someone can write the novel for us? Unschool 00:53, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Direct Nomination?

I was surprised when I learned that a Chief Justice is usually nominated directly, versus being elevated from Associate. Is there a reason for that? I would have thought that someone with Supreme Court experience would be prefered. -- 15:15, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

The difficulty for any President in elevating an Associate is that two confirmations (i.e., Senate votes) are required -- one for the new Chief Justice, and one for his replacement as Associate Justice. This is a very real political challenge. BeakerK44 00:55, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

That's one possible reason. But then, sometimes the two confirmations is something the president is looking for. When Reagan elevated Rehnquist, it caused a storm of opposition to Rehnquist (which was easily predictable). Although Reagan nominated Scalia at the same time, and Scalia had a history of opinions and writings that were far more unpalatable those in the Senate who disliked Rehnquist, the opposition had spent itself trying to oppose Rehnquist. Rehnquist was confirmed as Chief Justice by a vote of 65-33, while Scalia was confirmed by a unanimous vote of 98-0. It was widely acknowledged that the double confirmation worked in favor of Reagan's designs in that case. As for the other two "double confirmations", when White was elevated there were actually three nominations: White to Chief Justice, Lamar to replace him, and van Devanter to replace Moody, all nominated on 12 Dec. 1910. White was confirmed that same day without even a roll-call vote, and Van Devanter and Lamar were confirmed also without a roll-call vote on the 15th. At the time, it should be noted, nominees did not testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee; the first one to do so was Harlan Stone in 1925, the one after that was Felix Frankfurter in 1939 to address slanderous accusations against him, and the next one was John Harlan in 1955. It was only after Harlan that it became traditional for the nominees to appear and answer questions. So likewise the other elevation and double-nomination, Harlan Stone himself for Chief Justice and Robert Jackson to replace him, did not elicit any opposition either. Both were simply confirmed without a roll-call vote, Stone on 27 June 1941 and Jackson a week and a half later. Roosevelt had also nominated three justices the same day: Stone for Chief, Jackson to replace Stone, and Byrnes to replace McReynolds. Byrnes was in fact the first confirmed, also with no recorded opposition. If history was a guide, Bush should have elevated someone to give him a triple confirmation hearing (I'm joking, of course). Magidin 02:20, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. It is news to me also, but apparently there have only been three people out seventeen promoted from Associate Justice to Chief Justice.User:MPA

Indeed; and all in the 20th Century: White, Stone, and Rehnquist. White was allegedly promoted because Taft was angling for the position himself, and wanted it empty shortly after he left office; White was also recommended by his fellows for the position. Stone was promoted in part because he was recommended as well, among others by Hughes. You could add two other chief justices who had previously been Associate Justices, though they were not elevated: Hughes and Rutledge (the latter a recess appointment that was later rejected). And LBJ tried to elevate Abe Fortas, but Fortas withdrew the nomination when the scandal over his lecture fees broke. Magidin 04:12, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

I'm guessing it is because it is much harder to confirm an Associate, given their detailed history of opinions on Supreme Court cases.

There are other reasons. Some Associate Justices do not want to be elevated (Potter Stewart reportedly told Nixon he did not want the job after the Fortas elevation went south and the replacement of Earl Warren fell on Nixon). There is a very real risk of alienating other justices (Hugo Black and Robert Jackson both threatened to resign if the other was elevated, both very much in the running at the time). The President may not care for any of the sitting justices. The president may want to name his own man. As far as experience, appellate experience is usually considered to be more than enough, and historically has not really been a prerequisite. Some of the greatest justices to sit have had no experience as appellate judges, or even as judges: John Marshall, Earl Warren, Hugo Black; Rehnquist himself had no experience as a judge whatsoever when he was named Associate Justice. Magidin 04:03, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

I also agree. I also find it kind of goofy to nominate to the arguably most powerful position in the government of the USA a man who has 3 years of experience as a judge and otherwise only opinions that he wrote and says don't represent him. Can't we find somone more qualified, or would then Bush-approved candidate have to fight too much of a battle? I would like to know these things. -- jns

Of the 16 Chief Justices so far, seven had had no previous experience as judges at all: Oliver Ellsworth, John Marshall, Roger Taney, Salmon Chase, Morrison Waite, Melville Fuller, and Earl Warren. Not everyone was a good chief justice, but I think we can count Marhsall, Taney, and Warren as extremely able. Magidin 04:03, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

I think you're overstating the "power" of the Chief Justice compared to that of an Associate. Remember, each Justice has only one vote. The President, Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House are each far more powerful. The Chief simply gets to assign the person writing the opinion when he's in the majority, and he's chief administrator of the judicial system. If Bush thinks that John Roberts would be a more effective administrator of the judicial system (remember, as an MBA, Bush's background is in administration) and/or that Roberts' existing history as a jurist demonstrates that he is a consensus builder, that gives Bush very good reasons to nominate him instead of Scalia or Thomas, both of whom certainly would face some very hostile fire from Senate Democrats. BeakerK44 00:55, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Some interesting info and insights above, especially about reasons why the Chief usually gets appointed rather than elevated. Perhaps a bit of that explanation could be worked into the article space? i was wondering about it while reading Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine, which incidentally mentions another admin task/power of the CJ worth noting here, at least: controlling the weekly list of cert petitions under consideration, i.e. some say over the docket of cases... In one instance, Rehnquist kept re-listing a hot potato case (Planned Parenthood v. Casey) to keep it unresolved before the 1992 elections, some liberals on the court believed. Justice Stevens had to threaten to write a dissenting opinion about the re-listing, which would be unprecedented. So Rehnquist backed down. El duderino (talk) 08:12, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that most of the above is speculation: it cannot be sourced, so it is not appropriate to add. As for the agenda setting power, it is already mentioned. I think you are overstating the power: it has influence because the Chief Justice makes up the preliminary list, but any justice can add cases to the docket on his or her own initiative. Much to Burger's chagrin, Marshall and Brennan always added all capital cases to the agenda, for example. How much power the Chief Justice derives from the agenda depends on how much the other justices let him "get away with." Magidin (talk) 16:22, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Current table of Chief Justices

Is it really appropriate to list John G. Roberts on the table, given that he is still only the nominee for the position? Jdhowens90 19:09, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

No. I will change and guard it. Xoloz 19:28, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

It appears that some folks want Roberts on this table. My argument in opposition is John Rutledge -- it continues to be disputed by some scholars whether he was really Chief Justice, and he was appointed by Washington in a recess. Given his tenuous status, I find it odd to list Roberts before confirmation, whatever other WP precedent for lesser offices may be. Xoloz 19:52, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Also note, that there is no WP precedent for Chief Justice, and that office is unique in its own way, a Constitutional Officer who is the statuary head of a Constitutional Branch of Government. I argue that the special position of that office demands restraint in prematurely giving nominees the appearence of official imprimatur. Xoloz 20:05, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

You're making the case for chief justice precedent by restricting prior evidence to only the chief justice, which last time a vacancy occured was pre-wikipedia. We've done this for Secretary nominees on the office page after nomination and before confirmation. That's the closest analogy and that's why there IS precedent on Wikipedia to include Roberts with a designation of nominee. 65.57.245.11 20:24, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Until sworn in, he does not belong on the lists, just in the notes or text, explaining his status. That is standard procedure with judicial appointments - take a look at how nominations to the Circuit Courts are handled. The Rutledge tenure is recognized by the government and recess appointments are valid, what some scholars say is beside the point. Next you will be telling me that Atchinson was a President ;-) . NoSeptember 20:37, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Dude try reading what I wrote. Secretaries nominated are not acting secretaries either, but we designate them as a successor on the table with a parenthetical remark of (nominated). He belongs on the list as a nominee, I'm not saying he IS a Chief Justice, but he is a nominee to be Chief Justice. We do the same thing for elected offices as well saying "Mel Martinez (senator-elect)" for example. 65.57.245.11 20:42, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I did read what you wrote. We have treated judges differently than Executive branch nominees. Judges do not serve at the pleasure of the President, they can not be fired (only impeached). A Senator-elect has met the conditions of the office (except the passage of time), while a unconfirmed nominee has not (he must still be confirmed, which is not a certainty). NoSeptember 21:47, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

It is also not a certainty for any Executive branch nominee to be confirmed yet we list them as nominated for the sake of providing complete information to readers

---

Complete information may be provided in text. In truth, Roberts does not have much relevance to the discussion of the Chief Justiceship yet, a mention is enough. I concur with NoSeptember that that the lifetime tenure of Justices is another reason to exclude Roberts till confirmation.

So, arguing against Roberts inclusion in the table, we have the following:

• The Rutledge example, as an appointed CJ, who in not included in the list by some, notably preeminent 19th historian George Bancroft. If he only makes the list under dispute, why add a nominee?

• Generally, judicial nominees are handled differently than executive ones. The independence of the third branch demands a greater respect for its officers (and for Senatorial confirmation rights) than might be expected for executive branch inferiors, who do serve at the President's pleasure.

• The Chief Justice is unique, even among Judicial nominees. A Constitutional officer, he is by statue The Chief Justice of the United States, esteemed above even his SCOTUS colleagues. As Rehnquist himself implied when he selected his Gilbert and Sullivan stripes, the Chief's administrative functions make him a quasi-Lord Chancillor.

• Roberts was himself a nominee for Associate Justice two days ago; although another change in plans is unlikely, his appointment has proved "fluid" in an unprecedented way.

• I argue generally against listing any nominees in lists of office-holders as premature and falsely authoritive, and derogative of the Senate's role. Is John Tower listed as a SOD nominee? He was. Listing current nominees gives the false impression that all nominees (even failures) are listed. I question if such precedent exists at all, and (if it does) it must be a weak precedent, because there are heavy factors against it. In a special case such as this, with a position of such prominence, the weak, uncertain precedent clearly cannot hold.

Given this, I will now restore the table sans Roberts. It will probably be only a month until he is there, but it is accurate, fair, and proper as a matter of respect to the dignity of the high office to keep him off the list until he assumes the office. Xoloz 01:19, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

It would appear someone yet again added Roberts. Given the apparent concensus among those here that the addition is premature, I removed it.--Yock 17:52, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I would have done this myself, but I was limited by WP:3RR. Xoloz 20:41, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Interim Chief Justice?

I don't think it is accurate to call Rutledge "interim Chief Justice". He was a recess appointment later rejected by the Senate. Certainly a footnote to that effect would be appropriate (say, "Recess appointement, rejected by Senate"). Formally, he was Chief Justice until confirmed or the next session of the Senate ended. Section 2 of Article II reads "The President shall have the Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session." Rutledge had the commission of Chief Justice. It is certainly an odd case, since his is the only recess appointment to the Supreme Court whih was later rejected; and recess appointments who are later confirmed take the Oath again. But even then, their service is counted from their recess appointment, not their confirmed appointment. Thus, Warren was Chief Justice from 1953 to 1969, even though his nomination was submitted to the Senate in January 1954 and he was confirmed in March 1954, because his recess appointment began in 1953. Magidin 04:27, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Bad Example

In the page it says, "Most Chief Justices, like William Howard Taft (a former President himself) and Earl Warren, are nominated to the highest position on the Court without any previous experience on the Court, or indeed in the entire United States Judiciary," which would perhaps imply (depending on how you read it) that Taft had no experience in the entire United States Judiciary, while, according to This article, he was a judge fo the Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals before becoming President. Perhaps John Marshall or Earl Warren might be a better example of a relatively well known person with no federal judicial experience prior to becoming Chief Justice. Waterj2 07:09, 6 September 2005 (UTC)waterj2, Sept. 6, 2005

I changed that; Taft was accurate as far as "no previous experience in the Court," meaning not having been associate justice first (only five CJs had ever been Associate Justice in the Supreme Court before becoming Chief). But I changed it to place John Marshall and Earl Warren as examples of those who had no experience in the federal judiciary at all. Magidin 16:11, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Duties

The assignment power of the Chief Justice is not really a "duty", nor is it specified anywhere. Like most internal procedures of the Court, it is an unwritten "rule", and certainly not a constitutional duty. I think it is best to say that, for the purposes of internal procedures of the Court, the Chief Justice is automatically considered to be the justice with most seniority regardless of his/her years of actual service in the Court. This makes the assignment power simply a corollary of seniority (which it is) rather than a specific power of duty of the Chief Justice. It also makes other powers/duties (speaking first in Conference, chairing Conference, and presiding over the Court when it sits) a consequence of seniority. I would suggest the following, breaking it up in several parts:

"The Chief Justice is considered to be the justice with most seniority, independent of the number of years he or she has served.

"By the unwritten internal rules of the Supreme Court, that means that the Chief Justice chairs the Conference of justices where they decide what cases to hear and discuss and vote on cases already argued; he prepares the preliminary list of cases to be discusses, and speaks first when voting on cases already argued, allowing him or her to define the agenda of the Court in large measure, and to frame the terms of the discussion (note that, traditionally, any Justice may add cases to the agenda by simply notifying the Chief Justice their desire to discuss a particular case).

"In any vote, the most senior Justice in the majority has the power to decide who will write the Opinion of the Court. Since the Chief Justice is always considered the most senior member, if he or she is in the majority then the Chief Justice may decide to write the Opinion of the Court, or assign it to some other member of the majority of his or her choice. (The Opinion must still receive the votes of a majority of Justices after being written; so on rare occassions votes have been known to switch depending on the written drafts.)"

Would this be acceptable? It seems like a rather major reworking for me to just charge ahead and make it without opening it up for discussion first. Magidin 16:47, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate very much the corrections you've given here, but I think this might be a case were "splitting hairs" leads to less clarity. The Chief Justice has one clear constitutional duty: to preside in case of Presidential Impeachment before the Senate; and one implied constitutional duty: to preside over the Court. Beyond that, all his duties are statutory (Judicial Conference, annual reports, designations to special tribunals, rule revisions, etc.) traditional (Pres. Inaugural.) It is clear that traditional duties really exist -- Rehnquist limped onto the platform on 20 Jan. for a reason; not appearing would seem improper, a species of dereliction of duty. In the same way, assigning opinions is a traditional duty (though obviously not a constitutional one.) It is also true that opinion assignments are otherwise based on seniority.

I do think that it is an implicit constitutional duty that the Chief preside at meetings, if only because Art. III mentions the Court and its Chief; I do not think that it is simply a traditional duty so much as a logical one inherent in his title. My point is that I believe it is a very fine matter which of the Chief's duties arise from seniority, and which from his office. I like your third paragraph very much, but I believe your second one ("By unwritten rule...") provides a false sense of clarity -- the origins of the Chief responsibilities are sometimes not so easy to assign to one source. I hope I have made sense. Xoloz 20:56, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you did. So you would agree with replacing the current statement on writing opinion with my first and third paragraphs. The last sentence may clarified a bit, I think; at least drop the "so" from "so on rare occassions...", and perhaps adding at the end "making someone else's draft the Opinion for the Court." Alternatively, I could just try writing a short article on how the majority opinion and concurrences/dissents are written, and link to that.

On reflection I think you are right about the second paragraph; nonetheless, I still think it might be worth noting that the Chief Justice has great influence in shaping the agenda and discussion within the Court by virtue of chairing the Conference. Perhaps:

"The Chief Justice chairs the Conferences between Justices where cases are discussed and voted on. He normally speaks first, and so has great influence in framing the discussion."

Magidin 21:16, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

By all means, your first and revised third paragraphs have my endorsement, with the caveat that I do not know (and no outsider firmly knows) how often opinion drafts change vote tallies, which are given in formal secrecy -- I would, thus, drop "rare" as well as "so." Again, thanks for the wonderful, high-quality edits. Xoloz 02:57, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I went ahead and made the change, making the former third paragraph (with your proposed further revision) into a sub-paragraph of the seniority one. I also added the paragraph on chairing the conference and speaking first, but if people think it shouldn't be there and remove it I won't put up a fight. Thanks for the kind words. Magidin 04:24, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

Oath of office?

Who administers it to the incoming CJ? The senior Associate Justice? Postdlf 03:04, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Good question. Traditionally, the Chief Justice administers the oath to incoming justices; but this is, as far as I can tell, just tradition. And there seems to be no specific tradition for an incoming Chief Justice. Burger administered the oath to Rehnquist, and Warren administered the oath to Burger. But according to Burger, as you can see in [3], when Burger asked Earl Warren to administer the oath, Warren replied that he (Warren) had expected Burger to ask one of Burger's colleagues in the Court of Appeals (since Warren and Burger did not get along very well), and it was at Burger's insistence that Warren administered the oath to emphasize continuity. That document also mentions that when Warren took office, at which time there was no departing Chief Justice (since Vinson had died) it was indeed Hugo Black, then the most senior Associate, who administered the oath. So I would expect Roberts to ask Justice Stevens to administer the oath, but he could, perhaps, ask some other judicial official. Magidin 16:16, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

And indeed, Justice Stevens administered to oath to Roberts. Magidin 19:09, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Trivia

During the shuffle of the past few days, I had added some trivia relating to the Chief Justiceship that got deleted; for instance, that Harlan Fiske Stone was the only justice to ever sit in all the chairs (having progressed from most junior to most senior justice and finally being elevated to Chief Justice), and that Roberts and Rehnquist are the only Chief Justices so far to have clerked for a Supreme Court Justice. Then the end of the article was deleted, then some of the trivia restored (shortest and longest appointment, etc), then the trivia removed and the references restored. Should the other trivia be added, or would it make more sense in a separate page, e.g., "Trivia about the United States Supreme Court" or some such? Magidin 20:23, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it should be readded, but that's just me. I haven't actually completely read the article yet, but I in part came here to see who served for the longest time as Chief Justice. I think that information could actually be of some value beyond just trivia actually because it could indicate the relative influence of different Chief Justices. But other information that I might consider trivial could also be of value to others. If the inormation is or was in a seperate "Trivia" section perhaps it should be dispersed throughout the article. Theshibboleth 01:07, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Chancellor of the Smithonian Institute

The Chief Justice is Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institute? What are his or her duties? Is this just a figurehead position? I felt that it was innapropriate for the Chancellor link to link to the article on Chancellors, meaning Chancellors for a whole country, so it now links to Chancellor_(education) since this would seem to be more of the sense of the title though not exact. Theshibboleth 01:11, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I now see that the Chancellor article specifically mentions the Chief Justice in his role as Chancellor of the Supreme Court. I'll move this to the Chancellor_(education) article. Theshibboleth 01:13, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

VPs and Acting Presidents

Actually, this correction had to do with the VP, but I thought that the previous version made it appear that prior to 1967, some VPs had served as Acting President for lengthier periods of time, when in fact, it was not even possible for a VP to become acting Prez until the 25th Amendment went into effect in 1967. Unschool 17:08, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I understood it as this way. An impeachment trial of the Vice Presidnet (when not Acting President) is automatically presided over by the Senate President pro tempore. One can't preside over one's own Impeachment Trial. GoodDay (talk) 21:35, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Numbers of justices

There are now 9 justices, but have there always been 9? Tabletop 08:01, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

The number has changed. See United States Supreme Court#Composition. (Mark Adler 12:14, 15 October 2005 (UTC))

The Constitution does not specify the size of the Supreme Court, so it is set by statute passed by Congress. The Judiciary Act of 1789 linked the number of justices to the number of circuits of lower federal courts (three circuits, and two Justices of the Supreme Court would ride circuit in each, giving a Supreme Court of size 6). In 1793 the number of justices per circuit was dropped to 1, but the Court remained of size six until 1801, when Congress reorganized the lower circuits and changed the size of the court to five. Then in 1802, under Jefferson, the size was restored to six. Then new justices were added whenever Congress established additional circuits: the seventh seat was created in 1807, the eight and ningth in 1837; the short-lived tenth seat which was in charge of the Pacific Coast circuit in 1863. The tenth seat was abolished in 1866, when antipathy towards Andrew Johnson resulted in Congress passing a law saying that the Court would be reduced from 10 to 7 seats by attrition. Then in 1869 the size was fixed at 9 (creating a vacancy since the Court had at the time only 8 justices), and the number of seats has remained nine since then. The only real attempt at changing the size again was FDR's Court-packing Bill. Magidin 20:17, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Switching votes

The current text mentions explicitly that Earl Warren switched votes in order to stay in the majority and affect the decision via the assignment power. I am not sure why Warren is being singled out; according to Woodward and Armstrong's "The Brethren", for instance, Warren Burger used this tactic very often (very notably after the first arguments in Roe v. Wade, when he assigned the decision even though the other justices remembered him as being in the minority). In any case, I think "voting strategically" would be a somewhat better term than "switching votes." Perhaps something along the lines of:

Some Chief Justices (notably Earl Warren and Warren Burger) are said to have voted strategically in particular cases specifically so as to be in the majority and be able to moderate a decision through the assignment power.

Any comments or better suggestions? Magidin 14:49, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

It's been a while, but I went ahead and made a change similar to the one above. I don't see why Warren was being singled out. I could mention the recent opinion in the Washington State scholarship cases in which Rehnquist voted with the majority to allow the state to forbid the scholarships being used for religious training as an example where it seems likely the Chief Justice voted with a majority he disagreed in order to assign the opinion and do damage control (Rehnquist wrote that opinion, which was very narrowly written). Magidin 17:55, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Popular Culture?

why must all wikipedia articles have a "Popular Culture" section? It is rarely relevant or informativeǃ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.98.52.155 (talk) 03:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

This is more of a "to each his own" thing. I'm sure every reader would be happy to have Wikipedia contain only the things they care about, and not bother with the rest. BD2412 T 19:58, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Images in Table

I missed it when it happened in April because it was the first of a series of changes. But is it really a good idea to have the images in the table of Chief Justices? They make the table unwieldly, making it extend too far vertically. It requires over three screenfulls, and most of the space is blank. For now I will make them smaller, around the size of the portraits in Supreme Court of the United States, but perhaps they should be dropped altogether; even at this size, the table is almost two screenfulls long. The point of a table like this is to be able to take in all the information easily. If the table is too large vertically, I believe it defeats the purpose. Magidin 21:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Wm. Cushing on list of CJs

Recommend Cushing be removed entirely. See the newly cited portion of his article concerning this. Thanks. Foofighter20x (talk) 20:06, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

That's no reason to remove him completely. Even if he was never chief justice, the fact that the president nominated him and he was confirmed by the Senate is sufficient reason to include a reference to him. Richard75 (talk) 17:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

But he never accepted the spot. Think of the precedent this sets. You'd have to count among members of the court Senate-approved candidates who declinde their position, like Robert H. Harrison and William Smith. Foofighter20x (talk) 17:39, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, I could see mentioning Cushing's nomination, confirmation, and declination in the article, but I wouldn't go so far as to put him in the table. Read Cushing's article. He had dispatched his declination before the Feb 3-4 hearings, so he never truely sat as CJ. Foofighter20x (talk) 17:45, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't mean to ignore your response, I didn't see it. Harrison and Smith were nominated as associate justices, not chief justices (at least their articles don't say chief justice), so Cushing is the only example of this happening in the office of chief justice. Richard75 (talk) 20:47, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

No prob. Just to clarify, I said the precedent set would be counting those other two guys as members of the court, not as Chief. :p :) Foofighter20x (talk) 06:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

End of John Rutledge's term as Chief Justice

The table said that Rutledge's recess appointment ended on December 15, 1795, but that is incorrect. It is the date the Senate rejected his appointment, but under Article II Section 2 a recess appointment ends at the expiry of the next session, which was June 1, 1796 (see 4th United States Congress#Dates of sessions). His article states that he left office on December 28 (and gives a source), so he must have resigned -- so I have amended the table to December 28. Richard75 (talk) 19:11, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

No. He never resigned. Arglebargle79 (talk) 16:16, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't think "removed" is accurate either; removal requires impeachment and conviction. I've changed the table to state his recess appointment was rejected by the Senate. Magidin (talk) 17:41, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Rutledge did resign, on December 28, 1795. Even though the Senate rejected his nomination on Deember 15, 1795, his recess appointment would not have expired until June 1, 1796. He could have dug-in his heals and attempt to persevere (man-in-the-arena-like); but did not. On December 26, he attempted suicide, and resigned a few days later. Drdpw (talk) 01:35, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Vandalism

53 people watch this page, and yet nobody noticed that the entire "Origin, title, and appointment to the post" section was deleted for seven weeks (see here and here). Wake up, guys. Richard75 (talk) 00:46, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Elevation to Chief Justice

Can someone cite what law or Senate rule that describes the procedure of elevation of an associate justice to chief justice? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asherkobin (talk • contribs) 08:20, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there is a law or a Senate Rule. If the President simply nominates someone who is currently an Associate Justice to become Chief Justice, then the nominee must go through the confirmation process; if successful, he resigns his current position and takes the Chief Justice position; if unsuccesful, he retains his position as Associate Justice (just like an unsuccessful appelate court judge nominee would still be in the appelate court). Magidin (talk) 18:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Worth noting here the ealier section above with more detail and some interesting speculation. El duderino (talk) 08:32, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Incredibly low salary

The article mentions the salary without any comment, but it is very interesting that it is quite staggeringly low, not much more than half that of the top judge in the UK, and not much more than new law graduates get in big law firms in New York. There must be some public discussion on this salary. What is the usual justification for it? Who supports it? Who thinks it should be raised to something more in line with what senior American lawyers make? What effect does the low salary have on the quality of the candidates for the office? Choalbaton (talk) 17:07, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Their pay is indexed against what Congressional members are paid, with the added constitutional caveat that if Congress ever decides to take a pay cut (*snicker*), the justices' salaries cannot be reduced. -- Foofighter20x (talk) 02:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Lock article?

This article may need to be locked. Someone edited the Style to "Chief Turn Coat". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.123.198.5 (talk) 20:17, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Seniority unclear

The first sentence under "Seniority" has to be revised.

"The Chief Justice is considered to be the justice with most seniority, independent of the number of years of service in the Supreme Court."

I have no Idea how the court works or anything but the sentence is - at best - not clear or - at worst - even factually incorrect. The article on seniority (which is linked to, right in this sentence) clearly describes seniority as something that comes with either age or years of service. That makes the sentence an oxymoron.

Literally interpreted the sentence could mean: "The office of chief justice is always held by the most senior judge." After further reading I know that that is false. But especially since the constitution does not specify anything it could very well be true and would make sense for a reader that is not informed (like me an hour ago).

I assume it is meant to say something like "The Chief justice has the most influence, independent of seniority."

A revision could be "The Chief justice has more influence on the court's decisions than the other judges, because he is normally allowed to speak first."

There is also no citation to clarify any of this.

No, it is not meant to mean anything about "influence". If you read the article on Procedures of the Supreme Court of the United States, you will see that there are many aspects of the way in which the Court works which are linked to seniority. For example: the most senior justice in the majority assigns the opinion for the Court; the Justices speak and vote in order of seniority in their conference; and so on. However, while the seniority of the Associate Justices is determined strictly by length of service, the Chief Justice is always considered to be the most senior justice for all procedural purposes, regardless of how long he has been serving. But the influence of a justice is not linked to their seniority, so to revise it as you propose would not only be misleading, it would be factually incorrect. Your claimed potential interpretation would automatically clash with the second clause of the sentence, by the way, so I disagree that it is possible interpretation. The sentence you object to is not factually incorrect. Magidin (talk) 02:18, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

That said, rather than modify the correct sentence, I've added some introductory sentences to help explain how seniority plays before making the statement about the CJ. Magidin (talk) 02:26, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Presidential Inauguration of 1793

Why didn't John Jay administer the oath of office at Washington's second inauguration? 101090ABC (talk) 22:10, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Chief Justices don't retire.

The article states that there's only 3 ways a Chief Justice's tenure ends - 1) death, 2) resignation or 3) impeachment/conviction. Chief Justice's do not retire, as there's no mandatory retirement. GoodDay (talk) 13:13, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Why would "mandatory retirement" be required for retirement to be possible? There is a provision allowing for retirement in the Judiciary Act, and when a justice takes that route, it's considered a retirement, not a resignation. If the article fails to mention that route, that's what needs fixing, not the table. For example, Earl Warren is described as having "retired from the bench" in his biography at Earl Warren College. Magidin (talk) 20:09, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

P.S. "Resignation" and "retirement" are not the same thing. Justices who retire are allowed to retain office space, staff support, assume "Senior Status", receive a pension, and may be assigned to hear circuit cases. Justices who resign are not. You must have a certain length of tenure before you are allowed to retire, which is why some justices (e.g., Fortas, Goldberg) resigned rather than retire. Also, early in the history of the Court, there was no provision to retire. Magidin (talk) 20:19, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

It's still relinquishing your seat on the bench, which requires a resignation. If there's a truly a distinction? then indeed that should be pointed out in the article. GoodDay (talk) 20:44, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

The Origin, title, and appointment to office section now states that "a justice's tenure of office ends only when they die, retire, resign, or are removed from office through the impeachment process." Drdpw (talk) 22:44, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

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Capitalization of title

I reverted a wholesale un-capitalization of titles, which has now been reverted. According to MOS:JOBTITLES, while job titles like "president" and "chief justice" usually go uncapitalized, they should be capitalized in three main instances: when they preface the name of a specific individual; when they refer to a specific and obvious person; and when it is addressed as a title or position in and of itself. For example, "Louis XVI became King of France and Navarre.

Thus, in particular, I believe the following instances should be capitalized:

• Chief Justice of the United States (rather than chief justice of the United States) in the opening of the lede, as we are refering to the title and position in and of itself. (Second and third words)
• President of the United States in the lede (rather than president of the United States) in the second sentence, again because we are refering to the position as carrying the power to nominate.
• The United States Constitution does not explicitly establish an office of Chief Justice, (rather than "office of chief justice") in the opening sentence of Origin, title, and appointment to office', because we are refering to the position in and of itself.
• administered the oath of office to then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson aboard the presidential airplane. (rather than "then-vice president Lyndon B. Johnson"), in the "Oath of Office" section, Line 67; because it prefaces the name of a specific individual.
• Since the tenure of William Howard Taft, the office of Chief Justice (rather than "office of chief justice"), in the opening of the "Other duties" section, because we are refering to the position in and of itself.
• 'Justice Robert H. Jackson was appointed by President Truman to be the U.S. Prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials of leading Nazis, and Chief Justice Earl Warren chaired The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. (rather than "U.S. prosecutor" and "the President's Commission"), in Line 82, because the first is a reference to the position in and of itself, and the second is the proper name of the Commission.

More open to discussion is the following:

• The chief justice, like all federal judges, is nominated by the President vs. "...nominated by the president" in the "Origin, title, and appointment to office" section.

Magidin (talk) 21:22, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Hello. Thank you for starting a discussion here.

* Your first example should be lowercase because the title is preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article): The chief justice of the United States.

* Your second example should be lowercase because the title is preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article): the president of the United States.

* In the third example, if we are referring to the title, the indefinite article implies that we are referring to in generically. If, instead, there is an "Office of the Chief Justice" as an organization or institution (like an "Executive Office of the President"), then Office, Chief, and Justice should all be capitalized.

* In the fourth example, "vice president" should be lowercase because the title is preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article): then-vice president Lyndon B. Johnson.

* In the fifth example, if we are referring to the title, the indefinite article implies that we are referring to in generically. If, instead, there is an "Office of the Chief Justice" as an organization or institution (like an "Executive Office of the President"), then Office, Chief, and Justice should all be capitalized.

* In the sixth example, "U.S. prosecutor" should be lowercase because the title is preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article). The modifier in this case is "U.S.". The "the" before the President's Commission should be lowercase because Wikipedia doesn't ordinarily capitalize the definite article after the first word of a sentence.

* Finally, in the seventh example, "nominated by the president" should be lowercase because the title is preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article).

For all of these, feel free to rewrite the copy to allow for text to be capitalized if you'd like. An example of this might be "Chief Justice of the United States is the title given to the chief judge [...]".

 Eyer ^contact  00:42, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I was going to point out, on the first, that President of the United States had its main subject capitalized, but I see that you changed that as well. However, the vast majority of other similar articles seem to have it capitalized despite a “The” preceding it. E.g., President of France, President of India, President of Ireland, President of Russia, President of the European Union (in the itemized list following the first sentence, they do it three times), President of Germany, and President of Mexico, to name a few; and in Chief Justice of India, Chief Justice of Canada, Chief Justice of Sri Lanka, Chief Justice of South Africa, and Chief Justice of Kenya, to name a few; all begin with “The Chief Justice...” So it would appear that you are out of step, despite the changes to the pages on the United States. I did a search for “President of” and clicked on several of the ones that show up, none have it without capitalization; and same with “Chief Justice of”. I grant I did not visit every single page that might carry those titles, but all the ones I did visit capitalize it in the lede. Magidin (talk) 02:19, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I think you implied that I edited the lede of President of the United States. That's not correct. The lede has had the lowercase "president of the United States" for weeks before I first edited that article. In fact, only after consensus was reached by others on that article (see Talk:President of the United States, I began editing other, similar articles (like this one). If President of France, President of India, President of Ireland, President of Russia, President of the European Union, President of Germany, and President of Mexico are incorrect according to MOS:JOBTITLES, then I'll work on them next. Best wishes,  Eyer ^contact  02:30, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

If I misstated what the most recent change to President of the United States was, I apologize for that. I’m using a mobile interface which I do not normally use and I am having a hard time finding edit-related links that I would normally use to check and cross-reference. I’ll come back to this when I am on a more familiar platform. Magidin (talk) 02:39, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I think your explanation for the fifth item got confused with the third, as in the former there is no indefinite article. In both cases, I think we are parsing the sentence differently; I read it as refering to the position, namely, "Chief Justice". In the third, "(an office of) (Chief Justice)" rather than "an (office of Chief Justice)". The indefinite article is generic for "office", but not for the specific position at issue. I'm not trying to die on this hill, I'm trying to understand these rules (I've switched upper to lower case in this and related articles before). I understand both sentences to be making statements about the specific job/position in and of itself. Magidin (talk) 17:05, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

(Oh, the MOS changed in the relatively recent past... that explains a lot, including why I'm finding it less easy to understand than before... Magidin (talk) 17:09, 10 July 2019 (UTC))

Capitalization (again)

In the lede, the title is preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article): The chief justice of the United States. We don't capitalize "The president of the United States". Why would we capitalize "The chief justice of the United States"?  Eyer ^contact  19:25, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

@Eyer: an easy answer: you should. Applying bullet #3 to opening sentences and their "first mentions" is nonsensical and looks silly, especially when wikilinks are involved. This is a great example of the poor fit between old print norms and new Web ones.  White Whirlwind  咨  19:29, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

I have removed the modifier. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 20:11, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

The result was a convoluted opening sentence, which I have reverted. Your wording was not an improvement. Drdpw (talk) 20:19, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Saying “Chief Justice is the position...” requires lowercase, as positions are common nouns. We can get around that by referring to the title, which would be capitalized. The trouble with that is that the article isn’t about the title... it’s about the position. I just made an edit to demonstrate how to capitalize by referring to the title, but for the record: I disagree with my own edit.  Eyer ^contact  20:46, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Eyer, I don't think that is a problem. The first section is called "Origin, title, and appointment to office". The title comes with the position, always. The second clause also describes the position as chief judge. No one will be confused! But they will be confused with an article titled with a capitalized Justice and a decapped justice in the lead sentence. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 20:58, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Coffeeandcrumbs, I don’t think there was any confusion to begin with. I’ll leave it to others to decide whether the lede should talk about the position or the title.  Eyer ^contact  21:08, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

The Chicago Manual of Style gives the following examples as correct: "the chief justice; John G. Roberts Jr., chief justice of the United States; Chief Justice Roberts". In other words, "civil titles are capitalized only when used as part of the name". Surtsicna (talk) 10:08, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the editors of the Chicago Manual of Style have gone nuts and are now following stylistic trends in other countries whose dysfunctional educational systems have gone completely haywire. At least the Bluebook still prefers to capitalize titles properly.

The American educational system is brutally elitist and often cruel, but its top high schools and research universities still produce the finest writers in the world. Those writers may not have won any Nobel Prizes in Literature recently, but that's because they (or rather, the major film studios they work for) are laughing all the way to the bank. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:05, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

The point is, our MOS style is not so unusual, same as Chicago in this case. You don't need to like it. I don't understand the rest of your comments. Dicklyon (talk) 03:01, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Senior associate justice

There are some 9 places in this page where the 'senior associate justice' is also interesting, yet this reverting edit re-added text to one specific place regarding seniority. I don't agree with that. I think it should be removed, or at most moved to a place more likely to be seen for the other uses of the text. --Izno (talk) 17:39, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Lede section

The edit made by @Foofighter20x: is obviously contrary to MOS:FIRST, which states, “ Keep the first sentence focused on the subject by avoiding constructions like "[Subject] refers to..." or "...is a word for..." – the article is about the subject, not a term for the subject”, not to mention at odds with the usage of all other articles about political offices. I’m not reverting due to WP:3RR, but given that this is a chance to a long-standing consensus treatment of the lede sentence, the onus is on Foofighter to explain why the lede ought to be modified in a fashion so clearly contradictory to an MOS guideline. If they are not willing or able to do so, prior consensus stands. Wallnot (talk) 20:25, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

You're relying on a style rule for biographies. The article isn't a biography; it's about the position itself. Foofighter20x (talk) 20:28, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Yet again you’ve declined to actually read the guideline. “While this guideline focuses on biographies, its advice pertains, where applicable, to all articles that mention people.” This is a clearly established rule. Wallnot (talk) 20:30, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

You're trying to use that in a manner which swallows all exceptions. It's clear that the intent of that rule isn't meant to be universally applied to all mentions of the office or title, but only those uses which are tied to a specific person, even if that use appears in an article about the position/title. Foofighter20x (talk) 20:39, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Anyway, change it back if you want. I don't care. It's this kind of nonsense that's driven me off this site before. Looks like it's going to do it again. Foofighter20x (talk) 20:42, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

@BD2412: apparently also disagrees. If you’re trying to prevent the application of an established guideline, you’ll have to come up with a more nuanced argument than “what nonsense” Wallnot (talk) 21:09, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

The title of the subject is not the same as the function of the subject. This article is not titled "Chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States", which is the role, but "Chief Justice of the United States", which is the name of the office, and which we have no power to change here. You might as well change it to "Chief justice of the united states" on the theory that it just describes a bunch of states that are united. BD2412 T 21:12, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I’m not sure what you mean by your references to the “title of the subject” and the “function of the subject”. JOBTITLES states that a job title is capitalized only when, inter alia, it “is not preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article)”. In the lede, “chief justice” IS preceded by such an article. Why do you think the guideline does not apply here? Wallnot (talk) 21:16, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

For exactly the same reason we don't change Supreme Court of the United States to Supreme court of the United States. BD2412 T 21:17, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

again, JOBTITLES doesn’t apply to the name of the court, just to the name of titles and offices. So your analogy just doesn’t make sense. Could you please read the guideline and, if you still disagree, indicate why the guideline does not apply here? So far you’ve just thrown out a bunch of red herrings in the form of faulty analogies. Wallnot (talk) 21:19, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Then here is a job title that will, perhaps, make it clearer to you: this is comparable to Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, not Lord high treasurer of Ireland. BD2412 T 00:31, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

@BD2412: I’m sorry, but what on earth are you talking about? Your reference to the lord high treasurer of Ireland is yet another non sequitur. This is getting awfully close to WP:DONTLIKE. I’d appreciate if you’d address the guideline at issue here rather than trying to confuse the issue by introducing faulty analogies and irrelevant comparisons. Can you please just respond to the question I’ve now asked several times: why do you believe that the guideline I’ve cited, which clearly calls for “chief justice” to be lowercase, does not apply here? Wallnot (talk) 03:24, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

You are conflating the name of the office with the title of the person holding it. You are welcome to seek consensus for your view, but I'd like to see you get consensus to get comparable titles like Lord High Treasurer of Ireland and Lord High Constable of Sweden changed in this way first, because we should not be inconsistent with the treatment of these things across the encyclopedia. BD2412 T 03:32, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

The distinction as you describe it is not recognized by the MOS guideline. In fact, the guideline explicitly says “Offices, titles, and positions . . . are capitalized only in the following cases” (I.e., the guideline explicitly requires that names of offices and titles be treated the same). Look at the table of examples in the guideline: the only distinction relevant to our discussion here is that titles (or names of offices, or whatever term of art you wish to apply to a phrasal noun that refers to a position) are capitalized only when unmodified (including by a determiner). When they are modified, the table of examples calls them offices; when they are unmodified, it calls them titles. That is the only distinction the guideline recognizes between the terms you're misusing.

I would add that although you are an administrator, you lack the authority to override Wikipedia policy by requiring me to obtain consensus for a change at another article before making that change here. Many Wikipedia articles fail to conform to MOS guidelines. That does not make those guidelines any less worth applying in specific instances. To decline to apply the MOS to one article because another article has not yet been copy edited would make the whole project of the MOS pointless.

Finally, as I am a law student and you are a lawyer, I strongly suspect you are falling prey to WP:SSF here. You may dislike JOBTITLES because in your work Chief Justice is always capitalized. But that does not change what the guideline actually says, as GoodDay below recognizes. Wallnot (talk) 03:46, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

To summarize: You seem to be arguing that some artificial distinction between title and office requires that "chief justice" be uppercase here. The only distinction that MOS:JOBTITLES recognizes is this: when a title or the name of an office is "[u]nmodified, denoting a title", it is uppercase; when it is "[m]odified or reworded, denoting an office", it is lowercase. A determiner/definite article such as "the" counts as a modifier; see bullet point three. Finally, MOS:FIRST requires that "chief justice" be preceded by a modifier (i.e., "the") in the lede sentence, because to do otherwise would violate MOS:FIRST's commandment that "the first sentence [be] focused on the subject by avoiding constructions like '[Subject] refers to...' or '...is a word for...'"; "Chief Justice . . . denotes" obviously violates this rule. Wallnot (talk) 04:05, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I have not asserted any administrative authority in this discussion whatsoever. I am merely pointing out that your position is utterly nonsensical. WP:JOBTITLES does not address the proper-noun name of a thing (in this case, the designation of the person who presides over the U.S. Supreme Court) at all, any more than it addresses movie titles or names of countries. The title could just as well be "Lord High Mucketymuck of the Totgnomes", it is not the actual title to which a person is biographically referred in running text in an encyclopedia, at all. You are looking at this entirely as something it is not. BD2412 T 04:10, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Of course, JOBTITLES does address the "name of a thing"—specifically, the name of a position or office. And it says that the name of a position or office is not a proper noun. Your claim that JOBTITLES doesn't address this usage is bizarre given that the table of examples contains instances like "Richard Nixon was the president of the United States." There, the common noun "name of a thing" is preceded by a modifier and therefore lowercase. JOBTITLES clearly addresses the designation of the person who presides over the executive branch, so why is the designation of the person who presides over the Supreme Court an exception? Wallnot (talk) 04:14, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

"Chief Justice of the United States" isn't a person, there is no person named "Chief Justice of the United States". There is a person who holds the constitutional duties of "Chief Justice of the United States", in the same way that the president lives in the "White House" (not the "White house") and works in the "Oval Office" (not the "Oval office"), and a cabinet secretary might work in the "Department of Commerce" or "Commerce Department" (not "Department of commerce" or "Commerce department"). If you are referring to a specific person holding that office, then sure, it's fine to say 'yesterday chief justice so-and-so did such-and-such', but this article is referencing the institution, not the person. The institution is a thing with a title, like the title of a book or the name of a university. If it were otherwise, the title of the article would be different, since we don't unnecessarily capitalize title terms any more than lede terms. BD2412 T 05:13, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I didn't say the chief justice was a person—I used your exact language, "designation of the person".

You seem unable to actually address the guideline—why is the usage of chief justice in the lede sentence of the article different from the usage of president in the example I cited? There is also no person named president of the United States, so by your argument, the example should read, Richard Nixon was the President of the United States.

You analogize chief justice to proper nouns like Commerce Department—but chief justice is a common noun by the very terms of the guideline, so this is (another) false analogy.

If it were otherwise, the title of the article would be different, since we don't unnecessarily capitalize title terms any more than lede terms. This is simply false: because JOBTITLES calls for titles to be lowercase when preceded by a modifier but uppercase when not, it requires that the article title uppercase the title while the lede sentence lowercases it. Read the guideline instead of inventing distinctions and trying to muddy the issue.

We seem to be going in circles because you refuse to address the guideline at issue here, including the text and examples I've quoted. Your arguments don't make sense because the distinctions you draw are absent from the MOS guidelines. This reeks of WP:DONTLIKEIT and WP:SSF. Wallnot (talk) 05:36, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

You keep using phrases like "you've declined to actually read" and "you refuse to address", which is getting dangerously close to personal attacks. Your responses are also basically WP:DIDNTHEARTHAT. As I have patiently explained to you, the office of "Chief Justice of the United States" is not a person. It is not a title. It is not a common noun, as chief justice would be. It is the name of a thing. If it were otherwise, and I will repeat this again as clearly as possible, the title of the article would be Chief justice of the United States, not Chief Justice of the United States, just as the title is lowercase in List of chief judges of the New York Court of Appeals. If you want to start an RfC on this, be my guest, but your interpretation of the rule is plain wrong. BD2412 T 06:42, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

dangerously close to personal attacks There are no personal attacks here. My comments concern the substance of your arguments, which as yet has failed to address any of the references I’ve made to the guideline itself. So I ask again: why is the modifier rule not relevant here?

Your responses are also basically WP:DIDNTHEARTHAT. I’m not sure how my replies are WP:DIDNTHEARTHAT when I’ve addressed your points head on by referring to specific language in both your responses and the guideline itself, as I will do here again.

the office of "Chief Justice of the United States" is not a person. I never said that it was a person, nor does the guideline say that it only applies to a person. Where are you getting that from?

It is not a title. The guideline does not only apply to titles but also to "[o]ffices . . . and positions". When it is preceded by a modifier like “the”, it is an office; when it is unmodified, it is a title, according to the guideline: see above discussion of table of example's division between "[u]nmodified [usages], denoting a title" and "[m]odified or reworded [usages], denoting an office".

It is not a common noun. Yes, it is. The guideline clearly states that "[o]ffices, titles, and positions . . . are common nouns".

It is the name of a thing. Sure, although I’m not sure what work this claim does for your argument, given that all nouns denote a person, place, or thing and that many nouns are lowercase. See generally the definition of a noun.

If it were otherwise, . . . the title of the article would be Chief justice of the United States, not Chief Justice of the United States. I will repeat my explanation of why this is false again. In the title of the article, “Chief Justice of the United States” is not preceded by a modifier such as “the”. As I’ve explained several times, when a title or office is not preceded by a modifier, JOBTITLES requires it to be capitalized, so the title of the article receives initial caps. In the lede sentence of the article chief justice must be preceded by a modifier (“the”) because of MOS:FIRST, so it must be lowercase. So no, the rule as I describe it (which is the plain meaning of the rule, as evinced by the fact that you still haven’t explained why the presence of a determiner here does not require the title/office to be lowercase) would not require the article title to be changed at all.

just as the title is lowercase in List of chief judges of the New York Court of Appeals. This is a false analogy; the job title in the article title of that article is lowercase because it is plural. See bullet three of JOBTITLES, which states that "a formal title for a specific entity" is capitalized only when, inter alia, it "is not plural". If there were such an article as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, the article title should be capitalized the same as the article title of Chief Justice of the United States, even under the guideline as I correctly interpret it.

If you want to start an rfc . . . I have started RFCs on this. But you’ll note that, in those RFCs, the question was whether a particular class of articles should be exempted from the guideline—not whether the guideline requires titles to be lowercase, which all editors, even those opposed to MOS’s general rule against unnecessary capitalization, acknowledged to be the case.

Your interpretation of the rule is plain wrong.: see above.

I’m sorry that my saying you’ve failed to read the guideline or respond to my argument hurt your feelings. To avoid that perception and to help the discussion move forward, perhaps you could respond to me point by point, as I’ve done for you here. Thanks in advance for your good faith participation in this discussion. Wallnot (talk) 14:25, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I have read the guideline, repeatedly. Please do not leap to the incorrect assumption that I have not. Doing so makes all of you assumptions suspect. You have not addressed the inconsistency between the title of the article and the proposed capitalization in the lede. Let's not tiptoe around this point. Wikipedia should have internal consistency between the title sitting at the top of the page, and the line directly below it, and that is certainly more important than a mere guideline on this point. On the other hand, I have only been editing Wikipedia for 17 years, and have only written around 7,000 articles, and have only worked on the development of a few hundred site policies and guidelines in that time. Perhaps you actually have far greater experience in these matters than I do. BD2412 T 18:56, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I’d be happy to address your question: The MOS expressly allows for the subject of the lede sentence to vary from the article title: “When the page title is used as the subject of the first sentence, it may appear in a slightly different form”.

In this instance, the MOS requires such a difference in form, because the job title as it appears in the lede sentence is preceded by the modifier “the” and thus is lowercase, while the job title as it appears in the article title lacks such a modifier and therefore is capitalized. Wallnot (talk) 20:07, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I feel constrained to repeat that the title as used in this instance is not a "job title"; it is not being used to reference a "chief justice so-and-so"; it is the name of the office itself. If this were at "Office of the Chief Justice of the United States" would it still make any more sense to change the case than it would for any other government department? I think this is the source of the confusion here. BD2412 T 20:23, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree that that is the source of confusion: the guideline applies not only to job titles but also to “[o]ffices . . . and positions”. You are correct that, as used here and according to the definitions in the guideline (i.e., the modifier rule), “chief justice” is an office. But the guideline not only applies to offices; it requires that they be lowercase. Wallnot (talk) 20:32, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

As long as the word "The" isn't being used? then the lead opens with Chief Justice of the United States. Otherwise it would be chief justice of the United States. For goodness sake, let's not start pushing these half-cap styles (Prime minister, Chief justice, Vice president, Secretary general, etc) in the office intros. GoodDay (talk) 21:43, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is suggesting that approach. I think BD's point (which is incorrect because inconsistent with JOBTITLES) was that if we lowercase the name of the office in the lede, we ought to lowercase it in the article title. That's wrong, because JOBTITLES requires that a title be lowercase if preceded by a determiner like "the" and requires that it be uppercase if not preceded by a determiner or other modifier. In the lede sentence, the job title must be preceded by the determiner "the" because to do otherwise would be inconsistent with MOS:FIRST. Wallnot (talk) 21:46, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Edit to add: I know you understand JOBTITLES, my reply was for others' benefit. Wallnot (talk) 21:47, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I understand JOBTITLES & I'm not a fan of how it has evolved in the last two or so years, via increasingly tilting towards lower-casing. But, that's another matter, I suppose. GoodDay (talk) 21:51, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I've reverted to the previous stable version and also removed the superfluous references from the beginning of the lead sentence because I could not figure out what exactly they were supposed to verify. There is no need for redundancy or bending over backwards to capitalize something that the Chicago Manual of Style, AP Stylebook, Oxford Manual of Style, and virtually every other major style guide in the world says should not be capitalized. See the President of the United States article, which does not say: "President of the United States is the title of the president of the United States of America." Surtsicna (talk) 21:47, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I've no objections to 'deleting' the word "The" from the intros of offices and/or positions, if that's what it'll take to have them capitalised. GoodDay (talk) 01:09, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

To keep the lede sentences grammatical after deleting the word "the", they'll have to be rephrased to the form "x is a term for" or "y is the title of". MOS:FIRST forbids such constructions in lede sentences. Wallnot (talk) 01:48, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

It has still not been made clear (and perhaps either User:Surtsicna or User:Wallnot can speak to this) why, if the point of the rule is that "justice" is a common noun here, everyone agrees that the title of the article should be "Chief Justice of the United States". It is also not clear why Lord High Treasurer of Ireland and Lord High Constable of Sweden and High Steward of Westminster Abbey should be any different. BD2412 T 02:20, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

It has still not been made clear (and perhaps either User:Surtsicna or User:Wallnot can speak to this) why, if the point of the rule is that "justice" is a common noun here, everyone agrees that the title of the article should be "Chief Justice of the United States".

I apologize, I thought I'd addressed this issue a number of times:

• because JOBTITLES calls for titles to be lowercase when preceded by a modifier but uppercase when not, it requires that the article title uppercase the title while the lede sentence lowercases it.

• In the title of the article, “Chief Justice of the United States” is not preceded by a modifier such as “the”. As I’ve explained several times, when a title or office is not preceded by a modifier, JOBTITLES requires it to be capitalized, so the title of the article receives initial caps.

• the job title as it appears in the lede sentence is preceded by the modifier “the” and thus is lowercase, while the job title as it appears in the article title lacks such a modifier and therefore is capitalized.

Perhaps it is still unclear to you. Let's review JOBTITLES.

Offices, titles, and positions . . . are common nouns and therefore should be in lower case when used generically . . . . They are capitalized only in the following cases:

. . .

When (a) a formal title for a specific entity (or conventional translation thereof) (b) is addressed as a title or position in and of itself, (c) is not plural, (d) is not preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article), and (e) is not a reworded description

Let's apply this rule: the title of the article is "Chief Justice of the United States". (a) This is the formal title for a specific entity. (b) It is being addressed as a title or position in and of itself, as opposed to, say, a substitute for John Roberts's name. (c) It is singular. (d) It is not preceded by a modifier, including a definite or indefinite article. (e) It is not a reworded description of the role.

That is why the job title (or whatever term of art you wish to use for it) in the article title is uppercase.

Why is the job title in the lede sentence lowercase? It fails requirement (d).

It is also not clear why Lord High Treasurer of Ireland and Lord High Constable of Sweden and High Steward of Westminster Abbey should be any different.

They shouldn't be—the fact that the job titles in the lede sentences of these articles are uppercase is inconsistent with the JOBTITLES guideline. That said, there's no requirement I'm aware of that these be fixed before addressing the error in the lede sentence of this article. As I wrote above, Many Wikipedia articles fail to conform to MOS guidelines. That does not make those guidelines any less worth applying in specific instances.

Thanks, Wallnot (talk) 02:49, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

This brings to mind the "Bophocles" argument. An Oxford student allowed a classmate to copy a paper no Sophocles, but the classmate's sloppy handwriting made the "S" look like a "B". That classmate let another one copy the paper, and another copied the copy, and so forth, until one day a student in a class was making a point gleaned from the paper, and kept referring to "Bophocles", until the professor interrupted, "surely you mean Sophocles?" "No sir, the paper says Bophocles". If the reasoning supporting WP:JOBTITLES is that "justice" is a common noun in the phrase "Chief justice of the United States", then the presence or absence of a preceding "The" is of no grammatical consequence, and is entirely arbitrary. Seal of the President of the United States contains a preceding "the" but "President" is still capitalized. Office of the Commissioner of Railroads has a preceding "the" but "Commissioner" is still capitalized. There is something that rings false about the "rule" in light of these. BD2412 T 03:00, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

If you don't like the rule, perhaps you'd like to seek consensus at WT:MOS to change it. But regardless of how arbitrary the rule is, this is what it requires. Wallnot (talk) 03:09, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

BD2412, I'm afraid this misunderstanding is the product of an uneasy compromise between those who want Wikipedia's style guide to be based on academic and press style guides and those who want titles capitalized apparently simply because they like it so. The compromise, therefore, is to capitalize titles that are not preceded by modifiers, including the definite article, and thus the title of the article is such as it is. If Wikipedia were to simultaneously follow both academic and press style guides and its own system of using sentence case in article and section titles, the title of this article would indeed be Chief justice of the United States (as in, say, Britannica). Surtsicna (talk) 09:06, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment TLDNR See President of the United States. This particular horse got flogged to death there and it kind of sets where the consensus is on this issue - ie "The chief justice ..." It's dead already. It wouldn't vooom for the president. It ain't going to nuzzle it's beak up to the bars and voom for a chief justice. Now, how many bikes do we want to put in this WP:BIKESHED? Cinderella157 (talk) 05:10, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• I think it's incorrect to say that there are "those who want titles capitalized apparently simply because they like it so". It was the authors of the Constitution who specified that the title was "Chief Justice" (though, granted, they also made a lot of interesting capitalization decisions), and Congress, in its multitude of laws affecting the office, has generally specified "the Chief Justice" or "the Chief Justice of the United States". BD2412 T 05:38, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

  As far as I can tell, Wikipedia does not normally employ 18th-century language standards nor does it take orthography cues from organizations that do not specialize in language matters. Doing so would result in quite a lot of chaos, wouldn't it? Especially with the interesting capitalization decisions! Surtsicna (talk) 06:39, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

  If we use the US Constitution as a basis. Many offices are capitalised. GoodDay (talk) 00:01, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

  'it's incorrect to say that there are "those who want titles capitalized apparently simply because they like it so".' Only someone not frequently involved in RM discussions would write something like that. Our style guidelines are mostly very clear, but we get repetitive push-back on them from an established but small "camp" of naysayers who just will not accept them because they don't suit these individuals' personal preferences.

  Trying to use the US Constitution as an ersatz style guide is so wrongheaded I can't believe anyone's trying it. It was written at the tail of the Early Modern English period, and engages in a wide variety of style shenanigans that English has long since abandoned (like, say, capitalizing random nouns and noun phrases, and doing it inconsistently at that). Here's just the first sentence: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." PS: "Defence" is no longer standard in American English (since ca. 1928. Should we go rename United States Department of Defense to match the constitution's spelling?
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:53, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

  You would think people would have noticed the part of the sentence where I also referenced usage by Congress. For example, 28 U.S.C. § 451, last amended in 1982: "The term “justice of the United States” includes the Chief Justice of the United States and the associate justices of the Supreme Court". Notice that "associate justices" is lowercase there, but the specific of "the Chief Justice of the United States" is capitalized. That is not archaic usage. BD2412 T 02:36, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Judge images disappear suddenly

I never have had this phenomenon anywhere. On Android phone Chrome browser, images of the histoeical judges at first seem to download normally but as I scroll down the page, suddenly all of them disappear. It happened many times in a row and no, I am not crazy neither was I intoxocated. 81.197.102.184 (talk) 03:54, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

"acts as a chief administrative officer for the federal courts" ??

The lead section states that the Chief Justices "acts as a chief administrative officer for the federal courts." However, this is directly contradicted by Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which stated in its 2013 annual report that that office's director "is the chief administrative officer for the federal courts." TortillaDePapas (talk) 23:28, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 06:23, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Impeachment of president: what if the Chief Justice abstains/is unavailable?

If the chief justice refuses to carry out a task that the justice ordinarily would (e.g. recusal), is in a condition that renders the justice unable to act, or is outright vacant, the understanding is that the most senior associate justice would act in that role.

Are there sources that talk about this in the context of impeachment trial of a president? Analogous to how other impeachments are presided over by either the vice president or the president pro tempore of the Senate. If the vice president won't be chairing over the trial for whatever reason, the president pro tempore fills in the chair role as the substitute.

I bring this up in the context of Trump's second impeachment, of which the trial occurred after he left office. Chief Justice John Roberts declined to participate in this one, and the Senate proceeded with then-president pro tempore Patrick Leahy (with the vice president abstaining as well, just like with the rest of the White House administration deciding to stay out of the matter). Some in the Senate wanted the constitutional clause of the chief justice's role to apply a former president, but the Senate decided that it didn't apply. But some news reporting at the time talked about this as if because the chief justice was absent the role got passed over to the preside pro tempore, which... doesn't sound right? As stated above, if the chief justice is unavailable, it should be the senior associate justice that steps in instead. 2600:1012:A023:670C:1F0:BD8F:F26F:EAAB (talk) 03:01, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't know what "news reporting at the time" you are refering to; what I recall was that it was always framed as Roberts declining on the grounds that Trump was no longer the President, and therefore the constitutional mandate that he preside over impeachments of the President was not applicable. So then the process is that of a "normal" impeachment trial by the Senate. The Constitution gives the Senate "sole power" to conduct impeachment powers. In Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 244 (1990) (this is not the case about President Richard Nixon; this is a case about the impeachment of the Chief Judge for the District Court of the Southern District of Mississippi, Walter Nixon), the Supreme Court essentially said that the Senate may conduct impeachment trials in whatever way it wants provided it satisfies due process. The Senate rules for conducting impeachment specify that if the trial involves President, or a Vice President 'upon whom the powers and duties of the Office of the President shall have devolved", the Chief Justice "shall preside" (emphasis added), and talks about "a case requiring the Chief Justice to preside" (emphasis added), so it does not appear that the Senate contemplates a case in which the Chief Justice is unavailable. Otherwise, it simply speaks of the "Presiding Officer" of the Senate, which presumably will be any Senator that can serve as Presiding Officer pursuant to the rules of the Senate. In summary, there does not appear to be any provision allowing the most senior Associate Justice to take the place of the Chief Justice in presiding over an impeachment of a President or Vice President acting as President; which is not terribly surprising: there was no provision for the Vice President not presiding over their own impeachment either. (And my understanding was that the Senate changed its rules to ask the Chief Justice to preside in that case, but the rules as I read them now do not seem to contemplate that, and only do so in the case where the VP is the acting president, presumably pursuant to the 25th Amendment.) Magidin (talk) 17:16, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

28 U.S.C. § 3 states, Whenever the Chief Justice is unable to perform the duties of his office or the office is vacant, his powers and duties shall devolve upon the associate justice next in precedence who is able to act, until such disability is removed or another Chief Justice is appointed and duly qualified. Given that presiding over a presidential impeachment trial is, in a way, the most preeminent of the chief justice's "powers and duties" (as it's stated in the constitution itself as the only time the position is mentioned), one may legitimately wonder if this code would indeed apply to the impeachment trial.

The Senate rule requiring the chief justice seems to be a requirement more for the Senate itself (affirming the constitutional clause), so that the Senate cannot continue with the trial bypassing a chief justice who is willing and able. But that doesn't seem to preclude the possibility that the chief justice isn't willing or able and therefore the task needs to be passed down to the next justice in seniority. 2600:1012:A023:4FDC:4416:AB68:9952:4740 (talk) 03:50, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

It does not preclude, but does not require. Like I said, it would appear to be a gap that would need to be resolved should the situation present itself. If your argument is that, due to your understanding of federal law by piecing together several explicit provisions, something will happen, then I would invite you to write it up and submit it to a law review; however, Wikipedia is not the place for original research, and as such we cannot add such a conclusion to the page. If, on the other hand, your entire purpose has been to engage in discussion, then be aware that this is not what the talk pages are for. Magidin (talk) 16:23, 29 July 2024 (UTC)