The Judiciary and the Law Concepts What circumstances

The Judiciary and the Law

Concepts • What circumstances are required for a case to be brought before the Supreme Court? • How do politics enter Supreme Court decisions? • Why can it be said that all judicial decisions are activist?

Concepts • Why can it be said that a president’s strongest legacy is found in the judiciary? • What control does Congress have over the judiciary?

American Legal Principles • A few underlying principles make up the foundation of our legal system: – Equal justice under the law – Due process of law – Adversarial system – Presumption of innocence

American Legal Principles • All who appear in court must be treated as equals. • The Founders were very concerned that the new nation avoid the hierarchical legal system that plagued many other nations and, as a result, enshrined many amendments in the Constitution that establish equal justice under the law.

American Legal Principles • Due process can be divided into two types: – Substantive due process: law deals with the question of whether laws are fair. Fairness is determined by looking at the Constitution, specifically the BOR and the 14 th Amendment. – Example: A law that made it illegal for girls to drive would constitute a violation of substantive due process.

American Legal Principles • Second type of due process: – Procedural due process: law is concerned with the question of whether laws are fairly applied. – Example: if suspect in certain crimes were held ten years without a trail this would be a violation of due process because the law guarantees everyone a speedy trail – Even if a nation has laws that are fair and just, if they are not applied fairly they are meaningless.

American Legal Principles • Adversarial system: this principle is based on the premise that the best way to work out questions of fact is to have two sides, or adversaries, debate the burden of guilt or liability in a situation. • Some critics say that this system creates too many conflicts, and recommend an increased role in mediators.

American Legal Principles • In both England the United States, the idea that the accused are innocent until proven guilty, the presumption of innocence, is one of the bedrock principles of the legal system. • Burden of proof is on the prosecutor in criminal cases, if there is any doubt juries are instructed to acquit.

American Legal Principles • Blackstone ratio: “Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”

Types of Law • In the United States most legal cases involve either civil law or criminal law. • Criminal Law: deals with serious crimes that harm individuals or society. • Civil Law: determines the results of disputes over things like contracts, property, custody of children to name a few.

Types of Law • Important vocabulary: – Grand jury: group of 24 -48 jurors who decide only one thing – if case should go to trial. – Plea bargaining: agree to a less serious crime and sentence. – Petit juries: criminal trials, 12 people.

Types of Law • Important Vocabulary: – Settlement: In civil cases, the parties negotiate how much they are willing to give up for the case to end. – Preponderance of evidence: in civil trials, equivalent of proving that 51 percent of the evidence points your way.

Structure and Jurisdiction • The federal courts are responsible for interpreting and settling disputes arising out of federal law. • State courts are responsible for interpreting and settling disputes arising out of state law.

Structure and Jurisdiction • Three level of federal courts: • Federal District Courts, which have original jurisdiction. • Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals, which hears cases from the District Courts. • The Supreme Court which hears appeals of cases dealing with constitutional questions from the circuit courts.

Structure and Jurisdiction • The Supreme Court can also hear cases between states and has original jurisdiction in cases involving foreign ministers. • The Supreme Court does not have a jury. It is considered a collegial court because it’s decisions are made by nine justices. • When the Court acts in appellate jurisdiction, it can only decide issues of the law, never the facts of the case.

Structure and Jurisdiction • Federal District Courts decide both civil and criminal cases in original jurisdiction. • The trial court that determines guilt or innocence is the court of original jurisdiction. • There are 91 Federal District Courts.

Structure and Jurisdiction • There are 13 Circuit Courts of Appeals, which hear cases on appeal from the Federal District Courts of from the State Supreme Courts. • In these cases someone has to claim that a federal constitutional right has been violated.

Structure and Jurisdiction • Circuit Courts decide issues of law, never of facts. • Circuit courts have no juries, decisions are made by panels of appointed judges. • In most cases the Circuit Court of Appeals is the court of last resort because the Supreme Court hears so few cases.

The Politics of the Judiciary • All judges in the federal judiciary are appointed by the president for lifetime terms. • Appointees must go through a confirmation process in the Senate. • To maintain judicial neutrality and integrity, impeachment is the only method of removal.

The Politics of the Judiciary • The appointment process has become very political. Some presidents have required potential appointees to fill out a judicial questionnaire to determine their political and judicial ideology. • Nominees are almost always the same party as the president.

The Politics of the Judiciary • In nomination hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, members of both parties try to determine how potential judges would rule in cases dealing with issues such as abortion rights, affirmative action, and school prayer.

The Politics of the Judiciary • Senators in a state where an appointee will sit have traditionally exercised senatorial courtesy, they submit a list of acceptable names of nominees to the president. • Liberals and conservatives often argue over a nominee’s judicial philosophy or level of judicial activism.

The Politics of the Judiciary • The central point of the argument is whether a nominee is more or less inclined to secondguess a legislative enactment. • As conservatives see it, the courts are the least democratic branch of government (because judges are appointed, not elected), and when they overturn an act of a legislature they are overruling the will of the people.

The Politics of the Judiciary • Judges who are reluctant to overturn acts of legislation are said to practice judicial restraint. • A judge who has no problem overturning a legislative action is considered a judicial activist.

Process of Reaching the Supreme Court • Not stated in the Constitution. • Supreme Court will not grant an appeal until all opportunities have been exhausted in the lower appellate courts. • In a vast majority of cases the Supreme Court will refuse to hear a case because it agrees with the lower courts decision.

Process of Reaching the Supreme Court • If four justices agree to review a case, the court issues a writ of certiorari, a legal document used to request the lower courts transcript of a case. • The Supreme Court will rule only in cases that are real and adverse, which means the case must involve an actual legal dispute. Such cases are said to be justiciable.

Process of Reaching the Supreme Court • Disputes over political issues cannot be decided by the courts. • The Court will not rule on hypothetical cases.

Process of Reaching the Supreme Court • The Court also places limits on who may bring cases before it. Simply disliking or disagreeing with a law is not sufficient to bring a case. • The petitioner (the person who brings the case) must have some vested interest in the outcome. Such petitioners are said to have standing.

Judicial Review • The Constitution does not specifically grant the Supreme Court the right to judge the constitutionality of laws. • That power was established by the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803). This power is called judicial review, was established by John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Judicial Review • Marshall was a Federalist who worked to increase the power of the federal government over the states. • Some other important court cases in relationship of the federal government and the states:

Judicial Review • Fletcher v. Peck (1810): The first case in which the Court overturned a state law on constitutional grounds. Fletcher established the Court’s right to apply judicial review to state laws. Previously, judicial review had only been applied to federal law.

Judicial Review • Mc. Culloch v. Maryland (1819): The Court ruled that states did not have the power to tax the national bank (and by extension the federal government). This decision reinforced the supremacy clause of the Constitution, which states that the Constitution “and all laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof… shall be the supreme law of the land; and judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

Judicial Review • Gibbons v. Ogden (1824): The Court ruled that the state of New York could not grant a steamship company a monopoly to operate on an interstate waterway, even though the waterway ran through New York. The ruling increased federal power over interstate commerce by implying that anything concerning interstate trade could potentially be regulated by the federal government.

How the Court Hears Cases • Both sides of a case submit summaries of their arguments and legal foundations for them. These are called briefs. • At the same time interest groups affiliated with both sides of the case submit their own briefs to the Supreme Court.

How the Court Hears Cases • These amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs constitute an effort to sway the justices to one side or the other and can be quite influential in determining the outcome of the case.

How the Court Hears Cases –Oral arguments may be made in a case. –Justices discuss the case. –One justice will write the majority opinion (statement of legal reasoning behind a judicial decision) on the case.

How the Court Hears Cases – Dissenting opinions are written by justices who oppose the majority. – Concurring opinions are written in support of the majority but stress a different legal basis. – Stare decisis: to let the previous decision stand unchanged. – Precedents: How similar past cases were decided. – Original Intent: The idea that the Constitution should be viewed according to the original intent of the framers.