The chief justice of the United States is the highest-ranking officer of the U.S. federal judiciary. The position is not specified in the Constitution, but it is explicit in Article One, Section 3, Clause 6 which states that the Chief Justice shall preside on the impeachment trial of the president. The current annual salary is USD 270,700, which is slightly higher than that of associate justices, which are USD 258,900.
About Chief Justice of the United States in brief
The chief justice of the United States is the highest-ranking officer of the U.S. federal judiciary. Since the Supreme Court was established in 1789, 17 people have served as chief justice, beginning with John Jay. The chief justice serves as a spokesperson for the federal government’s judicial branch and acts as a chief administrative officer. The salary of the chief justice is set by Congress; the current annual salary is USD 270,700, which is slightly higher than that of associate justices, which are USD 258,900. The position is not specified in the Constitution, but it is explicit in Article One, Section 3, Clause 6 which states that the Chief Justice shall preside on the impeachment trial of the president. The practice of appointing an individual to serve aschief justice is grounded in tradition. There is no specific constitutional prohibition against using another method to select the chiefJustice from among those justices properly appointed and confirmed to Supreme Court. Three incumbent chief justices have been nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate as chief justices: Edward Douglass White, Harlan Fiske Stone, and William Rehnquist. A fourth, Abe Fortas, was nominated in 1968 but was not confirmed to the position in 1986. As an associate justice, Fortas does not have to resign or have his or her seat on the court in order to be nominated to be chief justice.
However, John Rutledge was the first chief justice to be appointed in 1795, when President Washington gave him a 17-year recess appointment. He declined the appointment in January 1796 but returned to the court the next year. The first person whose Supreme Court commission contained the modified title was Melville Fuller in 1888. Five of the 17 chief justices served as associate justice prior to becoming chief justice; the first person to do so was John Rutledge. The title of chief justice was not altered in 1866 and remains as originally created. In 1866, Salmon P. Chase assumed the title of Chief Justice of theUnited States, and Congress began using the new title in subsequent legislation. The Chief Justice is an ex officio member of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution and, by custom, is elected chancellor of the board. The office is effectively for life and that once in office, a justice’s tenure ends only when the justice dies, retires, resigns, or is removed from office through the impeachment process. There are no plans to change the name of the office, which has been in use since the 1789 establishment of the court. It is not clear if there will be a chief justice in the future, but the office is not expected to change in the foreseeable future.
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This page is based on the article Chief Justice of the United States published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
