Yes. My inbox is routinely filled with statements from various organizations either lauding or denouncing Supreme Court orders and decisions. Lately, it’s much more the latter, from organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Society for the Rule of Law, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Public Citizen, the Constitutional Accountability Center, and many more.

But a more direct role these organizations play is in filing amicus briefs in cases before the court. These filings, also known as friend-of-the-court briefs, allow stakeholders who are not parties to a particular legal challenge to make their case about what the impact of a potential ruling might be. The justices don’t have to agree — in fact, they don’t even have to read amicus briefs if they don’t choose to. But such briefs are often cited in the justices’ opinions, concurrences and dissent, so they do have value, far more than simple public statements, in my opinion.

And no, these organizations have no means of censuring or sanctioning justices.

There are only three ways a justice can leave the bench: voluntarily via resignation or retirement, by impeachment, or by death. This was by design: The Framers wanted to shield justices from political influence by giving them lifetime appointments. The idea was that justices would be more likely to rule solely based on their interpretation of the law and the Constitution if they are not worried that a decision they hand down would imperil their jobs at the next election, or that a president may try to fire them out of frustration.

As to the “we” in the question: There is no direct way for the American people to remove a justice from the bench. Americans can, of course, implore their elected representatives in the House to begin impeachment proceedings and urge their senators to vote to remove them, but that’s about it. And given the fact that only one Supreme Court justice in history has faced impeachment charges (Samuel Chase in 1804) and none has ever been removed, impeachment is the longest of shots.

Good question, but its premise is wrong. Yes, the number of justices on the bench has changed over the course of our nation’s history. But it wasn’t because of changes to the country’s population. It was, frankly, because of politics.

The National Constitution Center’s blog has a good historical synopsis, but here’s the nutshell:

Congress is empowered by the Constitution to decide the number of justices on the Supreme Court through legislation. The law establishing the court, the Judiciary Act of 1789, created six seats on the bench. Subsequent laws have changed that number, with the bench ranging from five to 10 justices.

Some of the changes have ostensibly been done for administrative reasons. For example, the current number of nine was based on the fact that there were nine federal appellate circuit courts at the time the most recent Judiciary Act was passed in 1869. But the real reasons for most of the changes or attempted changes to the court’s size have always been political.

In 1801 Congress cut the number of justices to five in an effort to limit incoming President Thomas Jefferson’s power. It didn’t work: Congress expanded the court to seven during Jefferson’s tenure, and by President Ulysses S. Grant’s tenure the number went up to nine. President Franklin Roosevelt’s bid to pack the court with six more justices to protect his New Deal policies failed, and we’ve been at nine ever since.

So yes, the court can be expanded or reduced at any time, and it has nothing to do with the population. It has only to do with the power and willingness of Congress to pass another law.

That is a great question, and to be honest, I do not have a good answer. In law school, I learned that the doctrine of stare decisis was, to paraphrase a former president, a big friggin’ deal. It meant that unless there was a dramatic change in the law or circumstances that made a previous decision of the court unworkable or fundamentally unjust, the Supreme Court is supposed to adhere to its own previous rulings. There’s a good reason for this principle: It ensures stability in the law in a way that the American public, and other judges, can rely on.

The court’s increasing willingness to discard past precedents that justices simply disagree with, frankly, nonplusses me. The only logical conclusion I can come to is that the court’s majority is increasingly more interested in coming to a particular outcome in some of the cases than they are in adhering to precedent or tradition. I don’t come to that conclusion lightly, and it’s really dismaying. But here we are.

Another great question. For a long time I was very skeptical of proposals to change the court. But I now believe that a great solution to make the court operate in a fairer, more ethical, more responsive, and more responsible way is to change the way appointments are made and limit the terms of justices. I generally support the idea of 18-year limits with appointments staggered every two years. That way, every president has the opportunity to appoint at least two justices each term, which would tamp down the politicization of the Senate confirmation process.

The problem with a plan like this is that it would take a full generation to implement, given that there is no constitutional way to limit the terms of the current justices. Any change would only apply to new nominees. But I still support the proposal for future generations.

I also support making the court’s judicial code of conduct mandatory and enforceable. The justices have always operated on the honor system: They decide whether or not they have violated the ethics rules that every other federal judge is bound by. I’d support an independent panel, perhaps made up of retired federal judges and justices, to enforce the rules.

I got a lot of versions of this question. I feel like almost every issue of The Gavel I write is full of examples of the court allowing Trump and his administration to take legally and constitutionally dubious actions even before a ruling on the legality or constitutionality of those actions is handed down. I find that incredibly frustrating as a legal analyst and as a citizen. To be honest, I don’t know why the justices in the majority have chosen that path. But I share the concerns from the many readers I have heard from about the danger that poses to democracy.

I actually think this is an example of daylight being a good disinfectant. After a string of high-profile examples of Supreme Court justices flouting ethics rules by accepting lavish gifts, luxury travel, and lodging and other perks, the Supreme Court really didn’t change its ethics rules (though it made a show of pretending to). But justices did change their behavior. Taking recent financial filings at face value, the justices have been accepting fewer such gifts and disclosing those they do receive. My friends over at Fix The Court keep close tabs on the justices’ disclosures, and no lavish travel or gifts were reported (though several justices are making loads of dough off book sales!).

And given the fact that several news organizations in recent years have hired more investigative reporters to cover the justices, my deduction is not that such gifts are being underreported but that the justices are behaving better. Yay for journalism!

Thank you to everyone who submitted questions! I couldn’t get to them all, but always feel free to ping me on BlueSky, Threads, or Instagram at @KimberlyEAtkins. I engage there when time allows.