to prevent a tie when voting on a case
Currently, there are nine justices. It is an odd number in order to prevent ties when voting on cases.
The intention was that they could not reach a tie in their judgement.
For a majority ruling on the Supreme Court, a minimum of five out of the nine justices must agree. This is because a majority decision requires more than half of the justices to support a particular outcome or opinion. It is necessary to have a majority in order to establish a binding decision for the Court.
Congress decided to set the size of the Supreme Court at nine, with eight Associate Justices and one Chief Justice, in the Judiciary Act of 1869. While the exact reason they chose this number is unknown, the most likely answer is that Congress knew the Court needed an odd number of justices to help avoid tie votes, and probably believed nine justices were enough to handle the federal appellate caseload. As the US population continued to grow, the government kept the size of the Court at nine and made adjustments to the workload by adding the US Court of Appeals Circuit Courts in 1891, and by gradually reducing the Court's mandatory appellate jurisdiction to fit the size of the Court.
Each Justice is assigned one or more Circuits over which he or she is responsible for emergency petitions, stays, and certain other administrative duties that may require quick action from the Supreme Court. It is more expedient for a single justice to determine the disposition of certain motions than for the entire bench to convene, debate and vote on mundane issues (especially those that arise at odd hours).If the justice presiding over a particular Circuit believes circumstances of a motion or petition warrant the attention of the Court, he or she can present the matter for review.
With an odd number of justices, every vote is going to come to a result, with one side having more votes than the other; with an even number, you could have a vote that is evenly split, and which therefore fails to decide the issue upon which they are voting.
One possible reason (amongst many presumably) are that any vote taken by the justices can never result in a tie - a decision will always be made one way or the other.In 1869, Congress passed a law that fixed the number of Supreme Court justices at 9. The US Constitution creates "one supreme court" but does not specify how many justices there should be. That is up to Congress to decide. The number of justices is an usually an odd number so that there would be no tie votes. Why there are 9 though is a matter of practicality based on the workload of the Supreme Court. The first Supreme Court had 6 justices, then it changed to 5, then to 7 then to 9 then to 10 then to 7 again and then back to 9.The original U.S. Supreme Court had only six Justices; that number has changed several times over the years.Judiciary Act of 1789: Court size 6Judiciary Act of 1801: Court size, 5Repeal Act of 1802: Court size, 6Seventh Circuit Act of 1807: Court size, 7Judiciary Act of 1837: Court size, 9Tenth Circuit Act of 1863: Court size, 10Judicial Circuit Act of 1866: Court size, 7Habeas Corpus Act of 1867: Court size, 8Judiciary Act of 1869: Court size, 9Most likely, the current court has an odd number of Justices to prevent an evenly split decision. The number may have expanded to nine because the caseload has increased over the years, and not all Justices elect to review petitions for writ of certiorari (requests for a case to be reviewed by the court).The number was temporarily reduced from ten to seven during Andrew Johnson's term of office, because Congress didn't want him to have an opportunity to appoint new justices. The size of the Court was increased to nine rather than ten (most likely to avoid tie votes) when Ulysses S. Grant was elected.Congress always had reasons for changing the size of the Court -- whether to allow a sitting President more or less influence, or to adjust the Court's workload, but their purpose isn't always easy to determine.The last time this was seriously proposed was during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. However, Roosevelt's plan (which would have ultimately allowed for up to 15 justices) was so obviously an attempt to pack the court with those whose political ideology agreed with his own that it was a political disaster for him. As it was, 8 of the 9 justices on the Court (including the Chief Justice) were Roosevelt appointees by 1941.
27 is an odd number.
An odd number minus an odd number is an even number.
when an odd number is subtracted from an odd number the answer is an even number.
odd
it is an odd number