His Secretary of State should have delivered the official documents approving the appointments. However, the Secretary of State failed to deliver these documents or commissions to the then 3 new Justices of the Peace before President John Adams' term ended. One of the official documents was to be presented to William Marbury. After Thomas Jefferson became the new president around March 1801, he discovered Adams' plans to attempt to pack the country's court with Federalist judges (Amatrudo and Blake 87). The new president also learned of the previous executive's failure to complete new commissions. As a strategy to jeopardize John Adams' efforts, Jefferson ordered his Secretary of State to reject the proposal