Most Americans Can't Name Any SCOTUS Justices . . .

[TaleWgnDg]

.
http://company.findlaw.com//pr/2006/011006.supremes.html
.

Press Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most Americans Can't Name Any (U.S.) Supreme Court Justices, Says FindLaw.com Survey

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EAGAN, Minn., January 10, 2006 -- In spite of broad, high-profile news coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court in the past year, 57 percent of Americans can't name any current U.S. Supreme Court justices. According to a new national survey conducted by FindLaw.com, the leading legal Web site, only 43 percent of American adults can name at least one justice who is currently serving on the nation's highest court.

In any given year, the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments to a broad range of high-profile legal and constitutional issues. But in this past year, even greater attention was focused on the Court following the announced retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist and President Bush's subsequent nominations of John Roberts, the new chief justice; Harriet Miers, who eventually withdrew her nomination; and Samuel Alito, whose confirmation hearings began this week. Interest groups have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to sway public opinion on the nominations.

Still, the FindLaw.com survey finds a majority of Americans cannot name even one U.S. Supreme Court justice. The survey results represent a slight improvement over an identical survey conducted in 2003 that found only 35 percent of Americans could name any of the Supreme Court justices who were serving at that time.

Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, was the justice most frequently identified in the latest survey. O'Connor announced in July 2005 that she will retire from the Court as soon as a replacement justice is seated.

The percentages of Americans who could name each current justice were as follows:

27% Sandra Day O'Connor
21% Clarence Thomas
16% John Roberts
13% Antonin Scalia
12% Ruth Bader Ginsburg
7% Anthony Kennedy
5% David Souter
3% Stephen Breyer
3% John Paul Stevens

Additional results:

More men than women (46% to 39%) can name at least one Supreme Court justice.

The ability to correctly name Supreme Court justices rises with increases in age, education and household income.

Five percent of Americans believe William Rehnquist still serves on the Supreme Court. The former chief justice died in September 2005.

Two percent of Americans believe Samuel Alito is a Supreme Court justice. Alito was nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court by President Bush in October 2005, but has not yet been confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The percentage of Americans who can name all nine current Supreme Court justices, statistically speaking, is zero.

The percentage of Americans who can name eight or more of the nine current Supreme Court justices also statistically rounds to zero.

The publicity surrounding the appointment of new Chief Justice John Roberts appears to have made an impression. Sixteen percent of those surveyed identified Roberts as a current member of the Court. In the 2003 survey, only 10 percent of those surveyed identified then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist as a member of the Supreme Court.

Incorrect responses from those surveyed as to who is currently serving on the U.S. Supreme Court included George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Thurgood Marshall and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"In a way it's not surprising that most members of the public can't name a single Supreme Court justice," says constitutional historian Stephen Presser, a professor at Northwestern University Law School. "The average citizen probably doesn't view the judicial role as being as important as the role of Congress, which in effect makes the laws, or the president, who administers the laws. The reality is that who sits on the Supreme Court makes a big difference as to what happens to us as a nation. As such, the public ought to be paying more attention to the Supreme Court and the battles over the nomination of justices."

Information including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1893, profiles of justices, court calendars, briefs and listings of current cases can be found at FindLaw® (www.findlaw.com). Detailed results of the survey can be found http://public.findlaw.com/ussc/122005survey.html

The national survey used a representative sample of 1,000 adults nationwide, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, and was conducted for FindLaw.com by Ipsos Public Affairs.

http://company.findlaw.com//pr/2006/011006.supremes.html

.

This is no surprise, sadly. No surprise whatsoever.
.

[Skittles]

1. given enough time I can name them all

the ones I always end up racking my brain for are Kennedy and Breyer

[Staph]

2. Off the top of my head . . .

At two in the morning, I named all but Breyer and Stevens. I found it odd that the first names that came to mind were the conservative ones. I suppose that it's easier to remember the ones we hate!

[TaleWgnDg]

3. welcome to DU, staph! . . . n/t

[Staph]

4. I've been lurking for a couple of years . . .

but I'm trying to speak up more often!

[leftstreet]

5. Speak away!

DU often feels like kindergarten-with-no-teachers, but don't let the unique atmosphere stop you from sharing your ideas!

:hi:

[Psephos]

6. OK, just for fun, who here can name the Yankees' infielders

or three of the top ten drivers on the NASCAR circuit?

Who can name the conductors of two big-city American orchestras?

Who can name last year's winner of the Nobel prize for Literature?

Who can name one of the astronauts who flew on the space shuttle last summer?

Who knows two of the top podcast download sites?

Who can name the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center? (ok, that's a gimmee)

Who is known as the "Father of Plate Tectonics"?

Who's been nominated for Documentary Oscars this year?

Who's likely to win Coach of the Year honors this year in college basketball?

Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?

Heh heh. No fair googling.

I remember nearly the exact same poll from 1990. Why? Because I was the only person in my circle of friends who could name all of the Justices, and somehow that was perceived as quite impressive.

My point is that for some people, who sits on SCOTUS is a big deal, and for others it's not. We here on DU are politically oriented, so naturally, it seems shocking that others don't share our predilections. Tut tut, we say. Yet we draw blanks when faced with equivalent questions from other areas of interest.

Argue all you want about how important SCOTUS is, it's only important if *you* think it is. For most everyone else, life holds different concerns and different dreams, different causes of anger and elation. We political junkies tend to forget that, and I think it's a major reason why we can be so tone-deaf about the issues that most of the country actually cares about. We pay for that at the polls.

Peace.

[leftstreet]

7. Wow. Great post.

:thumbsup:

Thank you.

Although I DO know last year's winner of the Nobel Literature Prize.
snark

[Inkdrinker]

14. I disagree...

The SCOTUS is not only important to those who care about it, like say, college basketball. If the Supreme Court were to strike down Roe v. Wade, a girl in a state that then bans abortion can't go into a clinic and demand an abortion because the decision doesn't apply to her, due to her lack of interest in the Supreme Court.

So that's the difference. I can't name the Yankees infield and the Yankees have no effect on my life.

[Katherine Brengle]

8. not surprising, but still sad... n/t

[Army]

9. 4 for 4

Everyone in the 448th Civil Affairs commo office could name one.

Take that, general public! How could you be an American and not know Clarence Thomas or Sandra Day O'Conner, for pete's sake?

[TaleWgnDg]

10. welcome to DU, Army! . . . n/t

[izzie]

11. What court are you talking about?

--

[TaleWgnDg]

12. ohhhh, that's *bad!* . . . n/t

[SongOfTheRayne]

13. OKAY....NOW WHICH ONE OF THEM SAID.....

"Of course, Mr. Gonzales. I'm sorry. I forgot that you couldn't say anything that might be the least bit relevent to this hearing!" I forget who that was....but when they showed the clip of him saying that, I was just like, "YES!"

Anybody know who that was?

[AngelFactor]

15. Even worse

Most don't knw what the Supremes do.

X X X

American Justice? Sure, so why is an attorney getting away with tampering with court documents even though he “inadvertently” filed three pages of emails detailing what was done with the court.

See for yourself: http://www.maximumadvocacy.com/Court_records.html, look on pages 25-27 of document 64.

Unbelievable. Priceless. Hilarious, if it wasn’t so sad but true.

How’s your faith in the justice system?

[SamuelAlito]

16. I can't name them

and I sit next to them all day long.

[Q3JR4]

17. I just correctly named

seven of the nine. Sadly enough I have problems with Breyer and Souter, but again I can name all the conservative ones with half my brain tied behind my back.

[TaleWgnDg]

18. Sadder, still, is that if the clock were turned back . . .

to say 1968 or so, Souter and Breyer would be considered somewhat conservative. Breyer is pro-business on many occasions, and Souter? Well, Souter came off of the New Hampshire Superior Court which in no way is liberal or moderate. Quirky but not liberal or moderate.

What I'm saying is that as the U.S. Supreme Court has gotten more and more conservative these past years, overall, the moderates and centralists of yesterdays are now considered "liberal" . . . how sad can it get?

.

[Uppanotch]

19. The worst thing is the public's understanding of what the S. Ct. does..

The public knows next to nothing about our system of jurisprudence and how the U.S. Supreme Court has played a big role in such areas as our rights under the Constitution (fewer) vs. the increase in the rights of corporate interests (almost always at the expense of the vast majority of citizens).