Prologue Summary and Analysis

The United States Supreme Court performs its work in secret. Very little of what they do is in front of the public, whether it is internal debates, drafts of opinions, deliberations, etc. The decisions are announced in the form of written decisions. The Justices also tend to shun the public eye, limiting their public appearances to those that are ceremonial. The court's session, known as the term, is from October to June or July. This is the period during which it hears cases and renders decisions.

There are seven steps with each case that comes before the Supreme Court. The Court must decide if it wants to take the case. The Court hears fewer than two hundred of the five thousand cases that get filed. When it decides to hear a case, this is known as granting cert and it is...