The American Legal System and the Courts

Chapter 10

In this discussion we will learn about

• The notion of law and the role that it plays in democratic society

• The constitutional basis for the American judicial system

• The dual system of state and federal courts in the United States

• The Supreme Court and the politics that surround and support it

• The relationship of citizens to courts in America

The role of law in democratic societies

• Provide security• Provide predictability• Resolve conflict

– Main role of the British Police– Traditionally only carried clubs

• Reflect and enforce conformity to society’s values• Distribute benefits and rewards society has to offer

and allocate the costs of those goods– Civil court system

• In sum, help maintain “civilization” / civilized society– Without law, there would be no government– End result, anarchy (modern day Samolia)

Characteristics of theAmerican legal tradition

• Based on common law (England) instead of civil law (Rome) – the two major types of law in the world– http://my.ilstu.edu/~ewells/cjs102/C

ommonvsCivilLaw-Chart.pdf (from Ed Wells at Illinois State)

• Adversarial instead of inquisitorial– Instead of investigations intent on

discovering “truth”, two sides present opposing cases and the won that seem the most truthful wins

• Litigious (li-ti-jus)– We sue.

Common Law vs. Civil Law

Not every legal system is based on common law.

Main Differences between Common and Civil Law

Common law• Case law• Based on customs/ English

tradition• Judge and jury• Trial dominated by lawyers with

judge as referee• Judge uses inductive reasoning

about the facts• Court may fashion an equitable

remedy- one that is “fair”

• Greater opportunity for false positive or false negative

Civil law• Principle of legality• Based on Roman law• One or a panel of judges • Judge actively participates in

seeking of evidence and examining of witnesses

• Judge uses deductive reasoning• Inappropriate for Court to fashion

a remedy not set forth in the Code

• Greater opportunity for corruption

Disadvantage to Jury System

The development of courts, judicial review,

• Court system set up to help check executive and legislative branches

• Not much written about it in Constitution (Article III)– Shortest of the three main articles; only three sections– Article III of the Constitution

• Marbury v. Madison (1803)– Expanded power and role of S.C. through judicial review– Judicial Review: Power of the courts of a country to examine

the actions of the legislative, executive, and administrative arms of the government and to determine whether such actions are consistent with the constitution. Actions judged inconsistent are declared unconstitutional and, therefore, null and void.

• The institution of judicial review in this sense depends upon the existence of a written constitution.

John Marshall

• Powerful S.C. thanks to John Marshall– Marshall was Chief

Justice of the S.C., serving from February 4, 1801, until his death in 1835.

Judicial StructureArticle III Section 1

• This section creates a federal supreme court while leaving the creation of lower “inferior” courts to Congress.

• The first Congress created a three-tiered court system of federal courts with the Judiciary Act of 1789.

• Understanding the Federal Courts is a good companion for this chapter.

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From text

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12 Circuit Courts

In St. Louis, we use the 94th District Court, and 8th Circuit Court of Appeals

U.S. Courts of Appeal

Understanding jurisdiction

• Courts with original jurisdiction – U.S. district courts– State trial courts

• Courts with appellate jurisdiction– U.S. courts of appeals– State intermediate appellate courts– State supreme courts

• Court with both original and appellate jurisdiction– U.S. Supreme Court

U.S. district courts

• Lowest level of federal court system

• 94 district courts (each state has at least one)– United States District Court of Eastern Missouri

• Hear both criminal and civil cases

• Juries responsible for verdict

U.S. courts of appeals

• Arranged into 12 circuits

• Solely appellate jurisdiction

• No new evidence or witnesses

• Panel of three judges makes ruling, not a jury

Missouri Trial Circuit Courts

St. Louis County uses the 21st Judicial Circuit

Missouri State Court SystemMissouri appellate courts

Missouri Supreme Court

Mary RussellChief Justice

George Draper

Patricia Breckenridge

Laura Denvir Stith

Zel Fischer

Paul Wilson

Richard Teitelman

Selection of judges

States• Method varies by state

-Appointment

-Nonpartisan election

-Partisan election

Federal• All federal judges are

nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate

• Senatorial courtesy is often invoked for lower level federal courts

U.S. SUPREME

COURT

Members

Breyer-L

Scalia-CThomas-C

Sodomayor-L

Roberts-C

Ginsberg-L

Alito-CKagan-L

Kennedy-C

Note: The Constitution doesn't require that S.C. justices be attorneys.

Biographies

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New Supreme Court Session Started Oct. 1

• 3 Women for the first time in history

• No trial attorneys• No non-layers• New Court said to

embrace Judicial Activism

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SotomayorGinsburg

KaganO’Connor, retired

Separation of Church and State?

Red Mass

Sunday before the new term.

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2010-2011 Docket1. Can you ban anti-gay protests at funerals (1st Amendment free

speech issue)– Is a funeral a public or private place– Is there an intentional desire to inflict emotional distress

YES

2. Can you ban the sale of violent video games to minors?– $1,000 fine for violent game sale to under 18 year old– Can you ban “speech” for children that you cannot ban for

adults?– Is “moral disapproval” enough of a compelling reason for

ban to youth?– What if you can causally prove psychological harm to kids?

(note difference between correlation and causation). NO

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Free Speech

2010-2011 Docket3. NASA v. CalTech Although students leaving CalTech and

being hired by NASA have disclosure privacy rights (don’t have to admit to smoking pot in college), can NASA collect such information on its own?

YES

4. Arizona Law Can Arizona (or States in general) go beyond Federal law in immigration cases. Specifically, can Arizona make a law making it illegal to hire an illegal alien?

YES

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2010-2011 Docket

6. Can overcrowding in prisons hold up as illegal?– California letting prisoners go because of lack of

space. – Is prison over-crowding cruel and unusual

punishmentYES

7. Wal-Mart v. Dukes Can all female employee of Wal-Mart be a part of a class action suit.

NO

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2011-12 Docket

United States v. Jones, No. 10-1259 – Question presented: Do the police need a

warrant to attach a tracking device (GPS) to a car and monitor its movements over several weeks?

– Ruling “Yes”

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2012-13 Docketsummarized from CNN report

• At issue: A challenge to the school's race-conscious admissions policies.• The case: Abigail Fisher individually sued the flagship state university after

her college application was rejected in 2008 when she was a high school senior in Sugar Land, Texas.

• The arguments: Fisher claims being turned away in part because she is white. The school defends its policy of considering race as one of many factors -- such as test scores, community service, leadership and work experience -- designed to ensure a diverse campus.

• Result: the Court reinforced that affirmative action must be strictly reviewed, but it did not outlaw those programs. Meaning the university’s use of affirmative action will be constitutional only if it is “narrowly tailored.”

Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (Affirmative action)

2012 -2013 Docket

• At issue: Continued use by the federal government of the key enforcement provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

• The case: Section 5 gives federal authorities open-ended oversight of states and localities with a history of voter discrimination. Any changes in voting laws and procedures in the covered states must be "pre-cleared" with Washington.

• The results: The Supreme Court struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote, freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval.

Shelby County, AL v. Holder; Nix v. Holder(Voting rights)

2014-2015 DocketYoung v. United Parcel Service, Inc.• In Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc., the Supreme Court

will decide whether the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (“PDA”) requires an employer to provide light duty to a worker if she needs it because of pregnancy, if the employer provides light duty to workers with similar limitations in ability to work when they arise out of disability or on-the-job injury.

2014-2015 Docket

• EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., arises out of the allegation that Abercrombie discriminated against Samantha Elauf by refusing to hire her because she wore a hijab and thus did not conform to their “Look Policy.” Title VII’s prohibition on religious discrimination requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for religion, such as modifying dress codes, if they can do so without undue hardship.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc.

2014-2015 Docket

Heien v. North Carolina• In 2009, North Carolina police stopped a vehicle on account of

a broken right brake light. The car's left brake light worked just fine. That traffic stop led to a search of the vehicle, which in turn led to the discovery of a plastic sandwich bag filled with cocaine. The driver, Nicholas Heien, was arrested and charged with attempted drug trafficking.

• But there was a problem. According to North Carolina law, motor vehicles are only required to have "a stop lamp." In other words, it's perfectly legal to drive around the state with one busted brake light so long as the other one works. The arresting officer in this case was wrong about the law and had no legal basis for the original traffic stop.

2014-2015 Docket• According to the Religious Land Use and

Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), "no government shall impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise" of prisoners residing in institutions that receive federal funding, unless "a compelling government interest" According Abdul Maalik Muhammed, a prisoner currently incarcerated by the Arkansas Department of Corrections, that state's refusal to let him grow a one-half inch beard in accordance with his religious views burdens his religious liberty in violation of the RLUIPA

• According to the Arkansas Department of Corrections, the no-beard rule is necessary to protect the safety and security of inmates.

Holt v. Hobbs

2014-2015 DocketNorth Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission• In 2006 the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners

began sending out cease-and-desist letters to non-dentists who offered teeth-whitening services to paying customers. According to the Board, those services amounted to the illegal practice of unlicensed dentistry.

Overview• The Supreme Court of the United

States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the nation, with authority over all other U.S. courts.

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The Court is made up of eight associated justices and one chief justice - all nominated to life terms by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Once in office, they can only be unseated by resignation, impeachment, or death (bad behavior removal option never used on S.C. justice). 

Each justice makes $244,400 a year (2014), the chief justice $255,500, and they receive that same salary into retirement after fifteen years of service.

Latest on the S.C.

Overview• Of the nine (9) justices currently on the

Supreme Court, five (5) can be regarded as conservatives and four (4) can be regarded as liberals.– Kennedy is sometimes a swing voter

• Lifetime appointment is intended to free the justices from political pressures, even from those who nominated them.  – Partisan politics is seen as

inappropriate.  – Direct contact with lobbyists is

outlawed.  – Public opinion is not supposed to sway

decision making.39

Chief JusticeJohn RobertsChief Justice Roberts

Overview– Every year, the Supreme Court

hears about 100 cases (in recent years, that number has dwindled down to about 90 cases per year).  • This is only a small fraction of the

many cases (about 7,000 a year) filed before it. 

• Sometimes, it refuses to get involved at all in controversy -- a practice known as judicial restraint, which is a legal tradition and has the pragmatic purpose of avoiding attacks on the judiciary. 40

Justice Anthony KennedyPotential Swing Voter

Overview– The opposite of judicial restraint is judicial

activism -- a term which has many meanings, but generally refers to an issue so significant that the Supreme Court feels it has to assert its supremacy and change the way policy is being established by other institutions of government. 

– The Court realizes it can only do so much, but when it feels it has to deliver a power punch, it can and will exert power the likes of which are rarely seen, up to and including the immediate imprisonment of government officials.

– See Justice Breyer on judicial activism and judicial restraint 41

2009 appointeeJustice Sonia Sotomayor

Cases the S.C. Hears• Cases come before the Supreme Court from a variety of

sources.  – The main route (76% of all cases) is from a Federal Court of

Appeals.  These are known as federal "circuit" courts, and there are twelve federal circuits in the United States. 

– The second most common route (14% of all cases) is from a State Court, usually a State Supreme Court, although the U.S. Supreme Court can dive down into any state level it wants to, if it thinks a significant Constitutional issue is involved. 

– The remaining cases come from specialized courts (6%) of military justice or special federal "district" courts (4%) that are concerned primarily with voting and election issues.

How A Case Gets to S.C.

• All requests to be heard by the Supreme Court must be in the form of petition for writ of certiorari (Latin, "to be informed of") which the Court uses to exercise its discretion in selecting cases it will review.

• It takes a rule of four - four justices must agree the case is worth hearing - for a petition to be accepted.  They then announce which cases they will hear and the deadlines for when briefs have to be filed. 

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Deciding Cases• Decisions are made by simple majority,

except when a justice is ill or excuses him/herself from a case, usually for some conflict of interest.  – Such self-disqualifications are called a

recusal. – The most common reasons for recusal

are family stock holdings. – Kagan’s recusals

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A tie vote results in no announcement and no written opinions. All justices are equal in power, the Chief Justice being

mostly a symbolic position which presides over Senate impeachment hearings, and another justice serving as social secretary. 

S.C. Facts

– No television or cameras are allowed in the courtroom.  Release of audiotapes are delayed to avoid same-day newscasts. 

– The Supreme Court is only active from around September to June every year, and tries to hear two cases a day.  This is known as the term of the Supreme Court, and is designated by the year it begins, the term beginning in October of that year. 

– During the term, they hear cases for about two weeks, then take recesses for about two weeks.  Nearly a third of all major decisions are not announced until the end of the term, in May or June. 

– Attorneys appearing before them only have one half-hour to make their arguments, and are frequently interrupted by the justices.

• Hear oral arguments/

The Cost

• The cost of trying a case before the Supreme Court can easily reach $684,652 (yr. 2014 dollars). Attorneys charge an average of $550 an hour, and it takes a lot of preparation. 

• If a poor person's case is to be heard, the Court often arranges an attorney to take the case pro bono (free of charge; as part of community service).  – Interest groups are major participants in the

process.

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Weirdness in Opinions

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• Because the court can choose which issues of the case to hear. Not all the issues in a case are necessarily heard.– They will limit and direct specific participants to

address specific arguments.  – The Supreme Court is not even bound by the

specific issues in a case; they can turn it into a landmark decision on whatever they want, • that is precisely what happened in Mapp v. Ohio (1961)

when they turned an obscenity case into a restriction on police search and seizure powers.

Typical Decision Options

• affirm -- let the lower court's ruling stand • reverse -- overturn the lower court's ruling • remand -- send the case back to the lower

court for a new trial • void or vacate -- has the same meaning as to

reverse the lower court's ruling 

A vacated judgment makes a previous legal judgment void. A vacated judgment is usually the result of the judgment of an appellate court which overturns, reverses, or sets aside the judgment of a lower court.

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Written Opinions• When the Court decides a case and at least five justices

reach the same conclusion, an opinion is normally written.  – It's not mandatory that the justices write anything, but

they do so over two-thirds of all cases tried.  • an opinion contains two parts -- a justice siding with the majority

can dissent from one part of the majority conclusion -- and a justice siding with the minority can concur with one part of the majority conclusion. 

– This complexity is known as the practice of concurring and dissenting opinions.  There's no common format that opinions must follow, and the only rule is that if at least five justices sign off on an opinion, it's an authoritative statement by the Court.

Kinds of law

• Constitutional laws– What concerns the Supreme Court

• Statutory laws– Legislative laws (laws created by Congress)

• Administrative laws– Laws written by Executive / Public Administrative

Agencies

• Executive orders– Force of law, issued by President

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