5 things you need to know about the Supreme Court.

• Author: Stolberg, Sheryl Gay
• Position: NATIONAL - Organization overview

How does the nation's highest court really work? Here are the basics from former New York Times Supreme Court correspondent Linda Greenhouse.

PART 1 of 2

The Supreme Court is at the center of many of today's most important and controversial issues: health care, affirmative action, crime and punishment, campaign finance, same-sex marriage, and religion. In fact, Americans have often called on the Court to answer society's toughest questions.

Yet despite its critical role in our democracy, the Supreme Court remains a mystery to most people. In an era of nonstop streaming video and hundreds of cable TV channels, cameras are not allowed in the Court, so few people know what its proceedings look like. The nine justices rarely give interviews or explain their legal thinking other than in the lengthy opinions the Court issues.

But in some ways, the Supreme Court is actually the most transparent of the three branches of American government. While the justices deliberate in private, cases are argued in public and the justices place all their decisions on the record. They sign their opinions. Every piece of paper that arrives at the Court and every step in the procedural process is part of the public record and easily accessible on the Court's website, supremecourt.gov. Compare this to the White House or Congress, where it's often impossible to know who's behind a proposal and where entire agendas can disappear without a fingerprint.

What the Supreme Court needs is a bit of demystifying. Here and in the next issue of Upfront, we'll examine 5 questions that reveal the basics and the behind-the-scenes of how the Court works--and why it matters so much.

[1] Why do justices get their jobs for life?

The Constitution says federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, serve during "good behavior." This has always been understood as a guarantee of life tenure, to protect them from fear of political reprisal for unpopular decisions.

Most other judges don't enjoy the same benefit. Only one state, Rhode Island, provides life tenure for its high-court judges. Among the world's emerging democracies, many of which have borrowed aspects of the American constitutional system, not one has adopted life tenure for its high court.

Life tenure for Supreme Court justices has come under fire--probably because justices are serving so much longer than they used to, often into advanced old age. Between 1789 and 1970, justices served an average of i5 years. Between 1970 and 2005, the average jumped to more than 26 years.

Of course, longevity isn't necessarily a problem. Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired in 2010 at the age of 91 after 34 years on the Court, was fully engaged in the Court's work until his retirement. But Justice William O. Douglas remained on the Court for nearly a year after suffering a serious stroke in 1974, finally retiring at his colleagues' urging.

One consequence of life tenure is unpredictability in the occurrence of vacancies. President Jimmy Carter had no Supreme Court vacancies to fill. President Richard Nixon had four in three years.

The randomness with which vacancies occur raises the stakes for each one, since no one knows when the next will come. The system also encourages justices to retire when a president from the political party they favor can name their successor.

"Justices have a conflicting set of obligations," says Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago. "They have an obligation to serve their terms as long as...