The Courts

Cases• Courts hear two types of cases:

– Criminal: people accused of crimes appear in court for a trial, witnesses give evidence, and a jury or a judge decides on a verdict of guilty or innocent.

– Civil: occur between parties who feel that their rights have been harmed. The court decides in favor of one side or the other. There are three kinds of civil disputes:

• Between two private parties (people, companies, or organizations)

• Between a private party and the government• Between the U.S. government and a state or local

government or between state governments.

• Article III of the Constitution established a national Supreme Court. It also gave Congress the power to make lower federal courts if Congress saw the need for them.

• Judiciary Act of 1789: established two types of lower federal courts: district courts and circuit courts.– The district courts served as trial courts for distinct

geographic regions. They handled minor civil and criminal cases.

– The circuit courts took more serious cases and heard appeals from the district courts. (These became courts of appeals in 1891.)

Origin

• The United States has a dual court system.– Our federal courts exist alongside 50 separate state

court systems.– Each state has its own laws and courts established

by their state constitution.

Dual Court System

• The goal of this legal system is to treat every person the same.

• Under the Constitution, every person accused of breaking the law has the right to have a public trial and a lawyer. If they cannot afford a lawyer, the court will name one and pay for his or her services.

• Each person is presumed, or assumed to be, innocent until proven guilty.

• Each person has the right to ask the courts to review his or her case if, in the person’s view, the law has not been applied correctly.

• The ideal of equal justice is difficult to achieve. Nonetheless, American courts try to uphold this ideal.

Goal of the Courts

• Article III of the Constitution gives federal courts jurisdiction—the authority to hear and decide a case—only in certain kinds of cases.

• Placing limits on these courts prevents them from interfering with state courts.

• There are 2 types of federal jurisdiction:• Exclusive jurisdiction: only they have the authority to

hear the cases.• Concurrent jurisdiction: either a federal or a state

court could hear a case. (For example, either court may try someone accused of committing a crime that breaks both state and federal law.)

Federal Jurisdiction

• The U.S. district courts are the lowest level of the federal system.

• District courts usually have original jurisdiction, or the authority to hear cases for the first time.

• There are 94 district courts. Every state has at least one of them, and some states have more.

• As trial courts, district courts are responsible for determining the facts of a case.– District courts are the only federal courts in which

witnesses testify and juries hear cases and reach verdicts.

District Courts

• Also called federal appeals courts, courts of appeals, or appellate courts.

• They do not decide on the guilt or innocence of a person in a criminal case. Nor do they decide which party should win a lawsuit.

• They have appellate jurisdiction: authority to review the fairness of a case appealed from a lower court.

• Lawyers appeal a case when they feel that the district court judge made a mistake. The appeal is based on how the law was applied by the judge. An appeal can also be based on how the judge interpreted the law.

• The losing side appeals. In a criminal case, though, only an accused person who has been found guilty can appeal. If the prosecution loses, there can be no appeal.

Circuit Court of Appeals

• There are 12 courts of appeals, and each have jurisdiction over a circuit, or geographic area.

• Congress created a thirteenth appeals court (1982), the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.– This court hears special cases brought against the

United States.– This court is headquartered in Washington, D.C.,

but it can hear cases in all parts of the country.

Circuit Court of Appeals

• The chief decision makers in the judicial branch are the federal judges.

• The Supreme Court has nine judges. Supreme Court judges use the title justice. (The leader is the Chief Justice.)

• Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution says that the president appoints all federal judges.– The president can appoint a federal judge only with the advice

and consent, or approval, of the Senate (majority vote).• Once appointed, federal judges have their jobs for life. They

can be removed from office only through the process of impeachment.– The Framers gave federal judges this right to hold their office,

or tenure, so they can be free from public or political pressures when they hear cases.

Judges

• Each district court has 3 key officials:– Magistrate judges: issue court orders (Ex. Warrants);

hear preliminary, or introductory, evidence and decide if a case should be brought to trial; decide whether people under arrest should be held in jail or released on bail.

– U.S. attorneys: The job of these lawyers is to prosecute people accused of breaking federal law and represent the government in civil cases.

– U.S. Marshal: make arrests, collect fines, and take convicted persons to prison; protect jurors, keep order in federal courts, and deliver subpoenas, a court order that requires a person to appear in court.

Court Officials

• The Judiciary Act of 1789 gave the Court the power of judicial review for acts of state governments NOT the Constitution.

• In 1803 the Court used the case of Marbury v. Madison to make clear that it had this power in regard to acts of Congress.

• Justice Marshall’s opinion in that case set forth three principles of judicial review:– The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.– If there is a conflict between the Constitution and any other law, the

Constitution rules.– The judicial branch has a duty to uphold the Constitution. Thus, it

must be able to determine when a law conflicts with the Constitution and to nullify laws that do.

Judicial Review

• The system of checks and balances puts limits on the power of federal courts, including the Supreme Court.– First, the Court can only hear and make rulings on the cases that

come to it. The Court will not rule on a law or an action that has not been challenged, or objected to, on appeal.

– Second, all cases taken by the Court must be actual legal disputes. A person cannot simply ask the Court to decide whether a law is constitutional.

– Third, the Court can only take cases that involve a federal question.

• Another limit is that traditionally the Court has refused to deal with political matters.– After the 2000 presidential election, the Court heard two cases of a

political nature. They both involved the recounting of votes in Florida.

Limits on the Supreme Court

• Enforcement, or the carrying out of the Court decisions, is an additional limitation to the Court’s power. The Supreme Court has no resources to make governments do what it orders.

• If Congress disagrees with a Court ruling, it can pass a new law or change a law that the Court has found to be unconstitutional.

• Congress and state legislatures can also try to undo Court rulings by changing the Constitution with an amendment.– Ex: In the years before the Civil War, the Supreme Court made

a decided that African Americans could not be U.S. citizens (Dred Scott v. Sandford). The Fourteenth Amendment, approved in 1868, overturned that part of the Court’s decision.

Limits on the Supreme Court

• Each week during the term, the justices get together to make their first decisions about the cases they have been studying.

• These meetings take place in secret; no audience is present, and no meeting minutes are kept.

• The chief justice presides over the meeting and is the first to lay out his or her views on the case. These presentations proceed in order of seniority, beginning with the longest-serving justice.

• Then the justices vote on the case. At least six justices must be present to vote on a ruling. A majority vote decides a case.

• Justices who oppose the majority decision write a dissenting opinion explaining why they disagree.

How the Court Makes Rulings