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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.
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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
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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.
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Conferral of Power Decision on the Federal Courts (Cont’d)
• Hamilton anticipated the power of judicial review and discussed it in Federalist No. 78.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Figure 14.1: The Federal and State Court Systems, 2001-2002
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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.
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Figure 14.2: Access to and Decision Making in the U.S. Supreme Court
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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.
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The Apex: The Supreme Court (Cont’d)
• 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).
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The Apex: The Supreme Court (Cont’d)
• 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.