Supreme Court of the United States in fiction
For example, author Anthony Franze explained in an essay in The Strand the allure of writing fictional novels set in the Supreme Court, noting that as a location it has "an air of mystery", as well as interesting characters, a unique language, history, and tradition, and that it provides "a backdrop of unparalleled stakes".
[4] On the other hand, television series centered on dramatizing the happenings of the court have proven to be short-lived, and have tended to receive overall negative critical reaction.
Of these it has been noted by Maxwell Bloomfield that "the earliest glimpses of the Court in American fiction occur as set pieces in satirical travelogues", with characters visiting the United States Capitol (which initially housed the Supreme Court), wherein "the furniture is described in greater detail than the Justices, who are pictured as emblems of republican virtue: aged, wise, and serene beings who are capable of listening to boring arguments for days without murmur".
In the novel, "through its subservience to corporate wealth the Court unwittingly starts a revolution" by deeming labor organizations illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act, leading to the writing of a new constitution.
[8] In 1901, the court decided the Insular Cases, issuing convoluted and deeply divided opinions with the net effect that the Constitution did not follow the flag.
[3]: 62 [11] The 1907 novel The Radical, by Isaac Kahn Friedman depicted a justice as having been "inexorably conditioned by his socioeconomic background" to find laws prohibiting child labor unconstitutional.
[13] In the show, fictional President John Wintergreen wins a landslide election after eschewing a beauty pageant winner to marry a girl named Mary, who bakes delicious corn muffins.
The Chief Justice presides over the wedding ceremony, and just after he has pronounced John and Mary man and wife, the pageant winner interrupts the proceedings to insist she is the one he should have married.
Grant plays Leopold Dilg a radical fugitive who takes refuge at the home of Jean Arthur's character, Nora Shelley, which is being rented by Lightcap.
An examination of the film in the context of reviewing court-related fiction notes that in addition to the romantic contest between the male leads, there is a philosophical one between Lightcap as "a Supreme Court nominee who views the law as a rational construct distinct from what he dismisses as the 'small emotions' of ordinary life, and Leopold Dilg, a vibrant, iconoclastic activist who believes that Lightcap must be 'thawed' before he can be trusted to join the Court".
[15] In the film, "the conservative new appointee Ruth Loomis and the venerable liberal lion Dan Snow, spar over the law", but "appear to be sliding toward a romantic relationship in the manner of conventional Hollywood comedies".
The film, however, "chooses instead to have Ruth and Dan discover that their jurisprudential disagreements are a vital source of judicial strength rather than a prelude to romance", with Snow convincing Loomis not to resign from the court over unethical conduct revealed to have been engaged in by her deceased husband.
The film was based on the 2000 book Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight: Cassius Clay vs. the United States of America by Howard Bingham and Max Wallace.
[18] Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times also commented on the excellent performances of the cast, while concluding that "[t]he legal wrangling of eight old white men behind closed doors simply pales in comparison" to Ali's part of the story.
[24] Unlike novels and films presenting accounts of the Supreme Court, television series focusing on it as a subject have failed to gain an audience, and have consequently been short-lived.
Both series, aired in the wake of the controversial 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, portrayed the court as divided between camps of differing political ideologies, and shaken up by a newly appointed justice at the center.
In "The Court Supreme", Shore argues for overturning the death penalty sentence of a mentally handicapped man convicted of raping a young girl, which was based heavily on the 2008 case Kennedy v. Louisiana.
In the series finale "Last Call", Shore returns to the Court to argue for Crane being allowed access to an experimental drug for Alzheimer's disease.
[28] In the political thriller drama Designated Survivor, the majority of the Supreme Court is killed when the United States Capitol is destroyed in a terror attack in the pilot episode.
In the episode Run (S02E22) Chief Justice Peter Koeman (Keith Dinicol) warns President Kirkman to not have his staff try and influence court decisions.
In House of Cards (Season 3), President Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is approached by Associate Justice Robert Jacobs (Jonathan Hogan) who requests he be allowed to retire due to having started to develop alzheimers.
Underwood later tries to discourage his political rival, Solicitor General Heather Dunbar (Elizabeth Marvel) from running against him by offering her Jacob's place on the court, but she announces her candidacy before he can formally nominate her.
How to Get Away with Murder (Season 4) features a Supreme Court session in episode 13, in which the protagonist, Annalise Keating (Viola Davis), brings a class action suit against the Federal Government for not providing effective public legal counsel, thus violating the 6th Amendment.
Political Animals (2012 miniseries) features Associate Justice Diane Nash (Vanessa Redgrave), the first openly gay member of the court.
In the 1995 Syfy science fiction revival series The Outer Limits, the episode Final Appeal (S06E021) focuses on the Supreme Court in the year 2076.
Two episodes ("The Short List" in 1999, and "Celestial Navigation" in 2000) center on the nomination of "Roberto Mendoza," played by Edward James Olmos, as the first Hispanic Justice.
It is implied that two surviving female Circuit Court Judges, Margaret Waldrie and Sondra Ongata, are promoted to partially fill the gaps caused by the death of male justices.
