John Marshall – 1755-1835

Marshall was the fourth chief justice of the United States and perhaps the Supreme Court’s single most important figure. He was the architect of American system of constitutional law, and he raised the judicial branch to equal status with the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government by introducing the doctrine of judicial review, whereby the Supreme Court has the authority to determine the constitutionality of any law that meets with legal challenge. In thirty years as chief justice, Marshall wrote 519 of the more than 1,000 decisions in which he participated.