Noncompliance

The Supreme Court has neither purse nor sword' Federalist No. 78  

'The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.'

 It is crucial to recognize that the Supreme Court relies on other institutions to enforce its decisions. When the Court, in a ruling authored by Chief Justice John Marshall, declared that the Cherokee Indians in Georgia had tribal sovereignty, President Andrew Jackson reportedly remarked, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.” The Supreme Court issues rulings, but the actual execution of those rulings is assigned to various entities. For instance, the Court may determine that state-sponsored prayer in public schools is unconstitutional, but the enforcement of that decision hinges on the cooperation of numerous stakeholders, including school administrators and educators. Whether through overt acts of defiance—like Roy Moore, the former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, resisting a federal court order to remove a massive granite monument to the Ten Commandments he had placed in the state judicial building's rotunda, or Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas obstructing school desegregation mandated by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education— or through more subtle failures to implement court decisions, noncompliance with Supreme Court rulings occurs more frequently than expected. While such noncompliance can be addressed (as seen when Moore was ousted from his position and President Eisenhower deployed the National Guard to enforce school desegregation), it cannot be corrected by the Supreme Court itself.