Chapter 14: The Courts Flashcards
Judiciary Act of 1789
- created 6 justices that would meet twice a year
- created system of federal courts (13 district courts and 3 circuit courts)
- district courts each had 1 judge, but circuit courts had 2 court justices and 1 district judge
- section 25 expanding to cases involving conflicts between state and federal law, treaties, or constitution
- Writs of mandamus (section 13)
writs of mandamus
gave court ability to uses orders to a lower court, gov official, or gov agency to perform acts required by law
Midnight Judges Act
reduced the # of judges on the supreme court from 6 to 5, preventing Jefferson from nominating 2 judges
longest serving justice of all time
John Marshall
Marbury v. Madison
- judicial review (power to strike down a law or executive branch action that it finds unconstitutional
- section 13 is unconstitutional since it expanded the original jurisdiction of the supreme court
district courts
- workhorses of the federal system (94 districts w/ at least 1 per state)
- 678 judges handle more than 250,000 cases per year
appeals courts
- hear appeals form district courts
- currently have 11 courts w/ 179 appeals judges and 92 senior judges (MO is 8th district)
supreme court
the “court of the last resort” for cases coming from both state and federal courts
-9 justices (has been up to 10 and down to 5)
4 was a case can make it to supreme court:
original jurisdiction
cases of appeal
writ of certification
writ of certiorari
original jurisdiction
cases involving foreign ambassadors, foreign countries, or cases in which a state is a party
cases of appeal
cases in which congress hasn’t determined that they require the court’s attention (not often)
writ of certification
cases where an appeals court asks the court for instructions on a point of law never before decided (least common)
writ of certiorari
at least 4 of 9 justices agree to hear a case that has reached them via appeal from the losing party in a lower court’s ruling (most common)
court cannot offer advisory opinions on:
collusion
standing
mootness
ripeness
collusion
the litigants in the case cannot want the same outcome and cannot be testing the law w/o an actual dispute between two parties
standing
the litigant must have a personal stake in the outcome; the court ha a lot of discretion in this instance
mootness
the irrelevance of a case by the time it is received by a federal court, causing the court to decline to hear the case (ex. death penalty)
ripeness
a criterion that federal courts use to decide whether a case is ready to be heard; a case’s ripeness is based on whether its central issue or controversy has actually taken place
Rule 10 says a case is more likely to be heard when:
- there is conflict between appeals court opinions
- there is a conflict between a federal appeals court and a state supreme court
- a lower court decision has departed form the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings
- the case often involves a substantial federal question that has not yet been addressed by the court
- a state supreme court or appeals court ruling conflicts w/ supreme court precedent
cert pool
law clerks screen cases that com ego the supreme court and recommend to the justices which cases should be heard
stare decisis
the court adheres to the precedent established in previously decided cases (let the decision stand)
strict construction
justices defer to the original intent of the constitution, meaning when making a decision they consider what the founders meant when writing the text
living constitution
justices argue strict constructionism can make a nation the prisoner of its past (if bound by text alone. frozen in time)
attitudinalist approach
most important political factor is justices’ ideology
