Chapter Fourteen The Courts. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 14-2...

Chapter Fourteen

The Courts

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 14-2

National Judicial Supremacy: The Role of the Courts in American Government

• American courts shape policies that form the heart of American democracy.

• The courts can undo the work of representative institutions.

• This thwarts democratic theory, which argues that the majority should rule.


Conferral of Power Decision on the Federal Courts

• The Constitution established “one Supreme Court” but left it to Congress to structure the federal judiciary.

• Judicial review led to the ascendancy of the Supreme Court. • Components of judicial review are:

• The power of the courts to declare national, state, and local law invalid if they violate the Constitution


Components of Judicial Review

• The power of the courts to declare national, state, and local law invalid if they violate the Constitution

• The supremacy of national laws or treaties when they conflict with state and local laws

• The role of the Supreme Court as the final authority on the meaning of the Constitution.


Conferral of Power Decision on the Federal Courts (Cont’d)

• Hamilton anticipated the power of judicial review and discussed it in Federalist No. 78.


Organization

• The state courts: • Each state (and the District of Columbia) has

its own court system. No two are alike. • Co-exist with the federal court system.

Individuals fall under the jurisdiction of both. • Handle and resolve vast majority of legal

disputes.


Organization (Cont’d)

• Court fundamentals• Criminal cases involve a crime or a violation

of a public order. • Civil cases involve a private dispute arising

from such matters as accidents, contractual obligations, and divorce.

• Common or Judge-Made laws involve legal precedents derived from previous judicial decisions.


Organization (Cont’d)

• The federal courts • The federal courts are like a pyramid: the

Supreme Court is at the apex, the U.S. Courts of Appeals occupy the middle, and the U.S. District Courts serve as the base.

• There are ninety-four federal district courts and nearly 650 full-time district judges.


Figure 14.1: The Federal and State Court Systems, 2001-2002


The Apex: The Supreme Court

• The mottos inscribed on the Supreme Court building capture the Court’s difficult task: providing equal justice under law while making justice the guardian of liberty.

• The work of the Court is determined by access.


Figure 14.2: Access to and Decision Making in the U.S. Supreme Court


The Apex: The Supreme Court (Cont’d)

• Original jurisdiction is the authority of a court to hear a case before any other court does.

• Appellate jurisdiction is the authority of a court to hear cases that have been tried, decided, or reexamined in other courts.



• The Rule of Four is an unwritten rule that requires at least four justices to agree that a case warrants consideration before it is reviewed by the Supreme Court.

• Once the Court grants review, attorneys submit written arguments (briefs).



• Justices decide how to vote on a case by one of two approaches: judicial activism or judicial restraint.

• Justices issue a written document explaining their reasoning in a case, known as a majority opinion, or by issuing one of two types of other opinions: a concurrence or a dissent.


Judicial Recruitment

• Neither the Constitution nor national law imposes formal requirements for appointment to the federal courts.

• The President appoints judges to the federal courts, and all nominees must be confirmed by majority vote in the Senate.


Judicial Recruitment (Cont’d)

• Senatorial courtesy is a practice whereby the Senate will not confirm for a lower federal court judgeship a nominee who is opposed by the senior senator in the president’s party in the nominee’s state.


The Consequences of Judicial Decisions

• Most criminal cases are resolved by the use of a plea bargain.

• Implementation of judicial decisions relies on others to translate policy into action.

• Evidence supports the view that the Supreme Court reflects public opinion at least as often as other elected institutions, reflecting majority sentiment.


The Courts and Models of Democracy

• Supporters of the majoritarian model argue that courts should adhere to the letter of the law and judges refrain must refrain from injecting their own values into their decisions.

• Supporters of the pluralist model maintain that the courts are a policy-making branch of government, supported by the filing of class action lawsuits.

Chapter Fourteen The Courts. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 14-2...

Documents

Transcript of Chapter Fourteen The Courts. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 14-2...