What about the amicus curiae in the United States?

Question

Do you have any information about the amicus curiae device in the United States?
I’m a French student and I do my Ph. D dissertion on the amicus curiae and I’m looking for informations, .... many thanks. Specially if you wrote smthg about it, could you send it at [e-mail].

Answer 1

The Supreme Court has the final decision on cases submitted to it for resolution. However, the justices can invite a friend of the court to say something if they deem that they do not have a consensus in a case. Thus, amicus curiae is applicable in the US.

Answer 2

In the US a "friend of the court" brief is usually only encountered at the appellate level. The US Supreme Court receives many many of these each term, many of them at the highest level of legal scholarship, and thus, these briefs really can and do influence the court's decision. Lower down the chain, such briefs mainly confine themselves to existing precedent, and any variance the case at hand displays.

Such briefs can also be solicited by any court at any level, as when a technical or scientific question needs to be clarified at a professional level, i.e., a brief can be considered to some extent expert testimony.

Answer 3

The Pope.