Reference no: EM132515660

I find the Supreme Court to be critical in functioning as a court of final resort. There's an assumption that anything the Legislative branch does is inherently Constitutional, yet that body is made up of imperfect human beings. As such, I find it necessary to have a check upon the actions of the Legislative and Executive branches in the event they overreach beyond the limits set by the Constitution.

Article III, Section II of the Constitution describes the Supreme Court's responsibilities which mention nothing about judicial review, or specifically, the striking down of a legislative or executive action. For that reason, I would have to say that the framers did not intend for the Supreme Court to possess the power of judicial review (although I will argue for its current existence). Enter the well talked about Marbury v. Madison (with assistance from the Judiciary Act of 1789) establishing a Supreme Court judicial review precedent.

Part II

I believe that the Supreme Court has done a great job with the role of exercising judicial review. An example of that power happened in 2015 in Obergefell v. Hodge when the Supreme Court decided that same-sex marriage is protected under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Consequently, same-sex marriage bans were struck down as unconstitutional and same-sex marriages performed out-of-state had to be recognized in other states.

In coming to their final decision in the Obergefell v. Hodge case, I don't believe that the Supreme Court properly executed their power since there is was no federal law which mandated states to recognize marriages of other states.