March 5, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:40 p.m. ET

The majority opinions of Americans should influence decisions of the Supreme Court, three-fourths of the people in a new poll say. Most people think public opinion now has little influence on the court.

The national poll by Quinnipiac University in Connecticut indicated that people approve of the way the Supreme Court handles its job by about a 2-1 margin, 56 percent to 28 percent. That's about where public approval of the high court has been in the last few years.

When asked in December 2000 how they felt about the high court's handling of the 2000 presidential election, people approved by a 51-40 margin. The court's approval rate now is not significantly different from what it was before the controversial 2000 elections.

When asked how much say the public should have in court decisions, 76 percent said the majority view should have influence. Half of that number, 38 percent of the total, said the majority view should have a great deal of influence.

Almost two-thirds of those polled, 63 percent, said the view of the majority now has little or no influence on the court.

When people were asked whether they had a favorable or unfavorable view of the individual justices, about a third had a favorable view of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas, while disapproval was in the single digits. Almost half hadn't heard enough about them to know how they felt, and other justices were less well known.

A majority of people, 54 percent, said they thought the Supreme Court should consider changing times and current realities when making decisions. About four in 10, 39 percent, said the court should only consider the original intentions of the authors of the Constitution.

Asked whether the Supreme Court is too liberal, too conservative or about right, 26 percent said too conservative, 19 percent said too liberal and 46 percent said it was about right.

The poll of 1,448 adults was taken Feb. 26-March 3 and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.