The Supreme Court is established by Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which says: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court .

The size of the Court is not specified; the Constitution leaves it to Congress to set the number of justices.

When the cases in volume 182 were decided the Court comprised the following nine members: The Insular Cases are a series of opinions by the Supreme Court in 1901 (the first six opinions in 182 U.S., at pages 1–397, all authored by Justice Henry Billings Brown, along with various concurring and dissenting opinions by other Justices), about the status of U.S. territories acquired in the Spanish–American War, such as the Philippines.

[2] The Supreme Court held in the Insular Cases that full constitutional protection of rights does not automatically extend to all places under American control.

This meant that inhabitants of unincorporated territories such as Puerto Rico—"even if they are U.S. citizens"—may lack some constitutional rights (e.g., the right to remain part of the United States in case of de-annexation)[3] because they were not part of the United States.