The Judiciary Branch
By: Kelli Kontney
Learning Objective 8.1: Trace the development of the judiciary and origins of judicial review
-Judicial Branch described in Article III of the Constitution
-Framers believed that the Judicial Branch, unlike the Executive Branch where they feared a strong, single leader could become a dictator, did not pose the threat of tyranny
-Article III, Sec 1 describes the process for establishing lower courts
-Article III, Sec 2 describes judicial power of Supreme Court
-Article III- Life tenure
-Checks on the Judicial System
The Constitution allows Congress to alter the Supreme Court’s decisions, impeach justices, and make Constitutional amendments to reverse court decisions (Legislative Check)
The president appoints all Supreme Court justices (Executive check)
-Checks by the Judicial System
Presides over presidential impeachment (Check on Executive)
Judicial review: power of the courts to review acts of other branches of government and the states (Check on Executive and Legislative)
-Judiciary Act of 1789: established the basic three-tiered structure of the federal court system
bottom: federal district courts
middle: circuit courts
top: Supreme Court (9 justices)
-John Jay: first Supreme Court chief justice (1790)
Lowly branch of government before John Marshall
established as an independent, non-political branch of government
helped to mold the new government with court decisions
-John Marshall: brought power to the Supreme Court (1801-1835)
used practice of seriatim or a series of decisions
Helped to establish the supremacy of the national government in Marbury v. Madison (supremacy clause)
- judicial review also came out of Marbury v. Madison
Learning Objective 10.2: Describe the structure and main components of the American legal system
-Three- tiered system
Trial Courts: where cases begin
Appellate Courts: reviews findings made by lower courts
Supreme Court: last resort court
-Jurisdiction: authority vested in a particular court to hear and decide the issues in a particular case
needed for a court to hear a case
two types of jurisdiction
-Original jurisdiction: jurisdiction of courts that hear a case first and determine the facts of a case
-Appellate jurisdiction: power vested in a particular court to review or revise the decision of a lower court
-Criminal law: codes of behavior related to the protection of property and individual safety
crimes can be graded as felonies, misdemeanors, or offenses.
Different states hold different penalties for crimes (e.g. death penalty)
assumes society id the victim of the illegal act
Ex: the impeachment process (check by the legislative branch on other branches)
-Civil Law: codes of behavior related to the conduct and relationships between individuals or groups
usually filed by individuals who think they have been injured by another party (Judge Judy)
involve lawsuits to recover something of value
some cases are settled before reaching court
-All court cases involve a plaintiff (who brings forth the charge)and a defendant (who is being accused of some sort of crime)
cases may involve a jury
Learning Objective 10.3:Explain the organization of the federal court system
-Constitutional Courts: federal courts created by the Constitution or Congress pursuant to its authority in Article III
All judges of the Constitutional Courts are nominated by the president (check by the executive branch)
- Legislative Courts: courts established by Congress for specialized purposes, such as the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims
judges appointed by president
preside over cases for special purposes
-U.S. district courts were created by Congress after the passing of the Judiciary Act of 1789
federal trial courts (94- every state has at least one)
must fall into one of three categories
-Involve the federal government as a party
-Present a federal question based on a claim under the U.S. Constitution, a treaty with another nation, or a federal statute
-Involve civil suits in which citizens are from different states, and the amount of money at issue is more than $75,000
all have a federal attorney nominated by the president and confirmed by the Congress (checks by the Executive and Legislative branches)
-The losing party in a federal district court can file an appeal to the Court of Appeals (13)
supervised by a chief judge and divided into three-judge panels
no original jurisdiction (have appellate)
have jurisdiction over appeals from criminal and civil cases and appeals from administrative agencies
instead of listening to new testimonies, the court hears briefs: a document containing the legal written arguments in a case filed with a court by a party prior to a hearing or trial
-The Supreme Court sets precedent: a prior judicial decision that serves as a rule for settling subsequent cases of a similar nature
this reliance on precedence is used to establish stare decisis: a reliance on past decisions or precedence to formulate decisions in new cases
acts a s a final interpreter of the Constitution
ensures uniformity in the interpretation of national laws and the Constitution, resolves conflict among the states, and maintains the supremacy of national law
Learning Objective 10.4: Outline the criteria and process used to select federal court judges
-The president of the U.S. nominates judges and the Senate must confirm the appointment (Checks by the Executive and Legislative Systems)
-Presidents will appoint judges that share the same policy goals
Sometimes, presidents will use senatorial courtesy: process by which presidents generally defer selection of district court judges to the choice of senators of their own party who represent the state where the vacancy occurs
-Most federal judges have prior judicial experience
Historically, white males have dominated the court system, but lately, the president has tried to nominate a higher number of minority and women justices
-Presidents will appoint justices to the Court based on the following criteria:
competence: judicial, legal, or governmental experience
ideology or policy preferences: similar political goals
rewards: those who have aided the president on the past and will continue to while in office
pursuit of political support: to gain support from a certain group of people (Regan appealing to women by promising to nominate the first woman Supreme Court justice)
religion: diversifying the bench (appeal to certain voters)
race and gender: diversifying the bench (appeal to certain voters)
-The Senate has to approve all nominees to the federal courts (check on the Executive branch), and usually does so through the Senate Judiciary Committee (example of a standing committee)
-The process of choosing and approving nominees has three main steps
Investigation
-the president narrows the list of candidates for office with the criteria stated above
-background checks of the candidates occur (Federal Bureau of Investigation)
-names are sent to AMerican Bar Association (ABA) where rating will occur based on criteria
-nomination is made and the Senate begins its own investigation
Lobbying by interest groups
-interest groups will use media to influence the public view on certain candidates
The Senate Committee hearings and Senate vote’
-the hearings to discuss appointments are usually closed to the public
-Senators ask candidates questions
-The Senate Committee will make a recommendation on how to vote to the body of the Senate
-Voting decides if an appointment is confirmed or denied (check on executive branch)
-Sometimes the president appoints a candidate who he believes with support his policy, and things do not turn out
Ex: conservative Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed a judge who followed liberal policies
Learning Objective 10.5: Evaluate the Supreme Court’s process for accepting, hearing, and deciding cases
-The Judiciary Branch is the least known partition of the government
-Now, the Supreme Court hears 100x more cases than it did when it was created (8,150 compared to 87)
-The cases heard in the Supreme Court are determined by the public issues of the time
Ex: in the 1950’s and 1960’s most cases involved issues with the Bill of Rights
-The Supreme Court has both original and appellate jurisdiction
-writ of certiorari: a request for the Supreme Court to order up the records from a lower course to review the case (needed for Court to exercise appellate jurisdiction)
all petitions to the Supreme Court must follow this criteria:
-the case must come from a U.S. court of appeals, a special three-judge court of military appeals, a district court, or a state court of last resort
-the case must involve a federal question
The Court has the power to refuse to hear a case if these requirements are not met
The Court can decide to hear a case through the Rule of Four: at least four justices of the Supreme Court vote to consider a case (similar to the Senate where a minority vote is protected)
-Each Supreme Court justice selects clerks to assist them in running personal errands
-Clerks perform a variety of tasks such as:
searching for arcans facts
playing tennis with justices
taking walks with justices
researching material
reading and summarizing cases
helping justices write opinions
-Clerks have a close and confidential relationship with their justice
-The Supreme Court will usually decide to hear a case when:
The federal government is the party asking for review
The case involves conflict among the courts of appeals
The case presents a civil rights or civil liberties issue
The case involves the ideological or policy preference of the judges
The case has significant social or political interest
-Supreme Court cases are often very long and complicated, but they always contain the following activities
Oral arguments
-justices will hear oral arguments from April to mid-June and from Monday through Wednesday
-Oral arguments can come from the Solicitor General or immediate parties
-all attorneys are given 30 minutes to present their case
-the arguments given by attorneys give justices extra information about the case
The Conference and the Vote
-the justices meet in a closed conference twice a week once the oral arguments begin
-the chief justice will preside over the meeting where the other justices will talk the case over and give their opinions
Writing opinions
-an opinion is written after the Court has reached a decision
-if the chief justice is in the majority, then he will choose the judge who writes the opinion
-if the chief justice is in the minority, the most senior member of the majority will write the opinion
-the legal reasoning of an opinion will become precedent on which future cases will be decided (stare decisis)
-negotiating process involves caucusing
-concurring opinions may be filed if a justice agreed with the outcome of a case but not the legal reasoning
-dissenting opinions are filed by justices that do not agree with the outcome of a case
Learning Objective 10.6: Analyze the factors that influence judicial decision making
-The activism/restraint debate is one of the main issues surrounding judicial decisions
-Judicial restraint: the belief that courts should allow the decisions of other branches of government to stand, even when they offend a judge’s own principles
advocates for judicial restraint: the judiciary branch is the least democratic part of the government, so the other branches should handle decisions as much as possible for the good of the people
advocates are usually strict constructionists: interpret the Constitution as it was written and intended by the Framers
-Judicial activism: the belief that judges should use their power broadly to further justice
believe that it if the Judicial branch’s job to correct injustices made by the other branches
Ex: ruling on Brown v. Board of Education
-Political scientists have come up with a few different models in an attempt to explain how judges vote on cases
behavioral characteristics
-believe that background differences such as childhood experiences, religious values, education, earlier political and legal careers, and political party loyalties influence how a judge decides to vote on a case
The attitudinal model
-states that Supreme Court justices decide cases based on personal preference on issues of public policy
The strategic model
-argues that justices way legal doctrine and their own policy beliefs with concerns about how other internal and external variables will affect and be affected by their decision
-Public opinion will act as a check on the judicial system as an energizing factor (making the court active or inactive based on public issues)
Ex: John Marshall’s active approach during the early years of the republic
-The Supreme Court in return affects public opinion
Learning Objective 10.7: Assess the role of the Supreme Court in the policy-making process
-Court decisions influence American politics and policy
-The Supreme Court exercised a check on the executive branch with its decision that the action of denying habeas corpus to prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay was unconstitutional
-The Supreme Court’s power is continuously growing as they see more and more cases
lower courts have grown as well with the judiciary branch being more active in policy making
-Courts rely on other forces of government to carry out their decisions
Judicial implementation: how and whether judicial decisions are translated into actual public policies affecting more than the immediate parties to a lawsuit
how well a decision is implemented depends on how popular it is within the other branches of government (check on the judicial system)
The implementing population consists of those people responsible for carrying out a decision (lawyers, judges, public officials, etc.)
The consumer population consists of those people who might be directly influenced by a decision (students and parents)
-For effective implementation, there are several requirements including:
The public must understand the decision
The public follow the policy (Ex: not all people followed the ruling of Brown v. The Board of Education at first due to the initial anger over the decision)
- The public be aware of the rights that a decision grants or denies