We tend to think of the Supreme Court justices as all-powerful guardians of the constitution, issuing momentous rulings from on high. They seem at once powerful, and unknowable; all lacy collars and black robes.

But they haven’t always been so, you know, supreme. On this episode of More Perfect, we go all the way back to the case that, in a lot of ways, is the beginning of the court we know today. Speaking of the current court, if you need help remembering the eight justices, we've made a mnemonic device (and song) to help you out. 

Plus, the twisted tale of the biggest heist in Supreme Court history — when reams of Justice Felix Frankfurter’s papers, stored at the Library of Congress, seemed to vanish into thin air.

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The key links:

- Akhil Reed Amar's book, The Constitution Today: Timeless Lessons for the Issues of Our Era- Linda Monk's book, The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution- Jill Lepore’s article, “The Supreme Court Caper”

The key voices:

- Linda Monk, author and constitutional scholar- Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale- Ari J. Savitzky, lawyer at WilmerHale- Jill Lepore, Professor of American History at Harvard University

The key cases:

- 1803: Marbury v. Madison- 1832: Worcester v. Georgia- 1954: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1)- 1955: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (2)

Correction: In our segment about the preservation of Supreme Court justices' papers, our guest misspoke — Bushrod Washington was George Washington's nephew (not his cousin).

Additional music for this episode by Podington Bear.

Special thanks to Dylan Keefe and Mitch Boyer for their work on the above video.

More Perfect is funded in part by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation.

Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project in collaboration with the Legal Information Institute at Cornell.

Portions of this episode aired on July 1, 2016.