Civics question 54 of 128

How many Supreme Court justices are usually needed to decide a case?

Source: official USCIS question list for the 2025 version of the civics test. This site is independent and not affiliated with USCIS.

Background

Five justices are usually needed to decide a case, a simple majority of the nine seats. What actually governs is a majority of those taking part rather than five in every circumstance: if a justice is recused or a seat is empty, eight participants still mean five decides, but a four-to-four split leaves the lower court's ruling in place with no opinion of national effect. Only the majority opinion states the law. Justices who agree with the result but not the reasoning write concurrences, and those who disagree write dissents, which carry no legal force yet sometimes shape later arguments. Do not confuse this five with the four votes it customarily takes to accept a case for review in the first place, which is a separate threshold.

This background section is written by US Citizenship Test Practice to explain the civics fact. It is not part of the USCIS question list, and the official answer above is the one to give at the interview.

Where this question sits

It is part of System of Government, inside the American Government section of the test.

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