Federal Judicial System of the United States - Essay Example

Federal Judicial System of the United s The United s of America has one of the most powerful and organized judicial systems in the world that provides the country with discipline of law obedience within the country. The courts system is divided into two parts Federal and State ones. Each state has its own system of courts that are supposed to enforce citizens of the state to obey the specific laws that exist on the territory of a particular state. Even though state judicial system is authoritative enough, still the Federal Judicial system dominates over the state courts in its authority. The federal court system that exists in the United States nowadays is different from the one that was created by the framers. Article III of the Constitution stated that the judicial power of the United States would reside in “one supreme Court,”. Thus, at the very beginning of existence Federal Judicial System was supposed to have only one institution – the Supreme Court. Though, since those times the system has grown and developed. As far as the framers realized that with development of the country and growth of the nation the system might need more courts as it was obviously going to become much bigger and complicated. To account for this, Article III, Sections 1 and 2 of the Constitution provides that the "judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish”. This means that Congress has a power to both create and eliminate other federal courts except for the Supreme one, so the court system has been constantly evolving according to the needs of nation. The new courts that are being created nowadays are mostly established in order to solve some specific issues, for example, there are separate district courts that deal with bankruptcy or taxes. The Federal Judicial system is separated into the three kinds of federal courts: the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. District Courts. The judicial power is extended to all lawsuits arising under the Constitution and the Laws of the United States. This means that the Judicial System deals with all the issues concerning the U.S. federal laws and their infringements. For instance, it extends to treaties, suits between citizens of different states and other specified areas. In those areas which are delineated by the Constitution, the Federal Courts’ power is superior to that of any state court. Thus, when there happens to be a suit that arises within both Federal and State power, but it is brought into a state court, the Federal court can retransfer the suit to the Federal Court for its further hearing. However, there are many areas into which the Constitution does not extend Federal judicial power. The suits where citizens of the same state are involved and the issues require some interpretation of specific state laws are the matter of the state courts. Among them are common contract disputes, negligence cases, etc. Hence the need for states to have their own court systems that would mostly work with state law. Ever since Constitution proclaimed the existence of the Supreme Court, American nation has grown and judicial system has developed. Even though there are many kinds of federal courts have appeared, the U.S. Supreme Court holds dominating position in Federal Judicial System. The Court has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all federal courts and over state court cases. It deals with the issues concerning federal law and has original jurisdiction over a small range of cases. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the final interpreter of federal constitutional law, thus, if some smaller courts have problems with law interpretation they send their cases to the Supreme Court for ultimate decision. Although, the court may only act within the context of a case in which it has jurisdiction. Number of Supreme Court Justices has changed through times. The Judiciary Act of 1789 set the size of the court at six (one Chief Justice and five Associate Justices). Later, the number of Justices grew to ten. With the Judiciary Act of 1869, Congress decreased the number to nine, a number which has remained constant to this day. All the chosen Justices are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, take senior status, or are removed after impeachment (though no justice has ever been removed). The number of petitions that the Supreme Court receives per year is around 10,000. The Justices of the court should decide whether they take a case or not, so they use the “Rule of Four” in estimation of incoming petitions. The rule proclaims that if four of nine Justices consider a case as worth being heard in the Supreme Court and it has national value, they will issue a ‘writ of certiorari’. This is a legal order from the higher court for the lower court to send the information of the case to them for review. When they receive the records from the lower court, the Supreme Court will hear about 75-85 cases a year. Thus, many petitions that people send to the Supreme Court are most likely to be denied because they are not valuable enough. The valuable cases that the Supreme Court deals with should concern as many people as possible. So the court mostly takes cases that have a large constitutional impact, or that answer important legal questions which affect the entire nation, not just the individuals involved. The majority of the Supreme Court’s cases today are heard on appeal from the lower courts. These cases usually come from the federal courts of appeal, but sometimes the Court hears appeals from the state Supreme Courts as well. The issues that concern the entire nation mostly look like some general questions about permission of abolishment of different things for all the citizens of the United States, For instance, whether kids are allowed to pray at school or it is forbidden (Rehnquist 362). In fact, the issues like these are being sent to the Supreme Court to define whether they are in conflict with the Constitution of the U.S or any of the Federal Laws. As for taking cases from lower courts the Supreme Court accepts them for consideration if  the lower courts can’t find agreement on interpretation of some federal law involved or when different lower courts have interpreted the law differently. Because when the lower courts decide cases differently, it can lead to confusion. When the Supreme Court takes the case which has led to different opinions in the lower courts, it creates a precedent that every court in the United States has to follow. This guarantees that laws are applied equally to all people, no matter where they live. Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court works with cases significant for the entire nation and which deal with common national issues, not particular individuals and their personal problems. The two kinds of courts that in the Federal Judicial hierarchy are lower that the Supreme Court are the United States Courts of Appeals and the U.S. District Courts. The District courts are the trial courts with power or jurisdiction over persons or acts that occur in a particular geographic area. The areas are divided with the borders of the states where the courts are located. And also some of the District courts serve some specified areas of the U.S. territory. Every state of the country has its own district court. In several states like Montana, the court travels around the state, in others it stays in one place. The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands each have a district court. There are two federal district courts in Missouri. The Eastern District is located at the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse in St. Louis, and the Western District of Missouri is in Kansas City. In total, there are 94 federal district courts in the United States. The number of judges of each of the district courts is varying and depends on the district’s caseload. When a suit is filed in a District Court, it is assigned to one of the judges who will handle the case until the final decision. Thus, a judge usually has a lot of cases in process of handling and the particular judge will be responsible for the outcomes of the cases, because the cases are considered to be the judge’s from beginning to end. Every lawsuit that comes for consideration into a district court is a court-supervised process of settling a dispute between two parties (individuals or corporate entity). The dispute can relate to obligations or rights of the parties that arise from the Constitution, laws, contracts and other legal arrangements concerning the law of the United States.   District courts have original jurisdiction, which means that they preside over cases first. Thus, if a person or corporate entity has an issue to be solved in a court, they need to go to the local district court and lodge a lawsuit. The cases that district courts deal with can be two types: civil or criminal ones. A case is criminal when a person breaks a federal law and gets arrested by law enforcement authorities. Civil cases are concerning individuals and their civil issues, for example, individuals versus a government or an agent of government that have violated the rights granted under constitution; or an individual against an organization that violated some rights of individuals granted under constitution. In general, all the cases that deal with federal laws and Constitution go to district courts first, and the local judges make an appointment to handle some resolutions about the issues. Currently, federal district courts hear approximately over 300,000 cases per year. There are some kinds of separate units of the district courts which deal with very specific cases. For instance, Bankruptcy Courts accept and hear the cases concerning bankruptcy as far as federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over bankruptcy cases. Usually people or businesses file for bankruptcy when they have more liabilities than they have the ability to pay from their assets and income. The bankruptcy courts estimate the cases and render verdicts about the status of ‘en desastre’(bankrupt). Bankruptcy judges serve 14 year terms and get replaced. Also, there are some other specific courts in the system of District Courts. Among them are The U.S. Court of International Trade which has nationwide jurisdiction over cases involving international trade and customs; and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that has nationwide jurisdiction over cases over most claims for money damages against the United States, disputes over federal contracts, unlawful “takings” of private property by the federal government, and a variety of other claims against the United States. Even though the U.S. District Courts are considered to be on the lowest position of the Federal Judicial system, still the courts play crucial role. As far as they deal with very specific cases, they provide the judicial system with high qualitative regulation of most of issues that rise. Thus, the responsibilities of the judicial system are separated and organized. The other level of courts under the Supreme Court is the Court of Appeals. These courts have three judges who are supposed to hear appeals from decisions of the District Courts within their own geographic territory. Thus, the courts of appeals have appellate jurisdiction and they are not trial courts, so they don’t hear cases first. Instead, the appellate courts review the decisions of the district courts, and determine whether they were correct.  An appeal means that the party that failed a case in a federal district court asks the local court of appeals to revise their case, estimate the judgment made in the district court for correctness and, if it is possible, to make a new judgment on some issue of law. The territories where the courts of appeals work are called “Circuits”. The entire United States is divided into 12 regions known as "Circuits." District Courts located in a particular Circuit are appealed to the Court of Appeals in that Circuit. They are often referred to by the circuit within which they are located, i.e., 1st Circuit, 2nd Circuit, 7th Circuit, etc. The procedure of appellation works in several steps. After the District Court judge hands down a decision, the loser may appeal to the Court of Appeals. He is known as the appellant. The appeal must be based on what the appellant feels are errors committed at the trial court level. The errors must be significant enough for the Court of Appeals to reverse the decision or nullify it and order a new trial. The wrong decisions of district courts can be divided into two categories of false interpretation of law. The first category is when the ultimate judgment on a case was made with insufficiency of evidences that established a particular fact. As far as appeals court judges are not present in court when testimony is given, they can have many doubts about the falsity of the district courts’ judgments, so in order to make them overturn findings of fact the evidences must be clearly erroneous. The other type of error alleged on appeal might concern the admissibility of particular evidences. This means that some evidences on a case were excluded from the case and it influenced the decision about the entire issue in the disfavor of the present appellant. If the situation of the case fits the two kinds of errors, the court of appeal will take the case into revision and the further interpretation of the meaning of the law will be a pure question of law. Thus, the Federal Judicial System of the United States is divided into three kinds of federal courts which are the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. District Courts. Each of the courts plays crucial role in the entire judicial system and the three of them constantly cooperate with each other guaranteeing orderliness and fidelity to the Constitution and the Laws of the United States of America. Works Cited Rehnquist, W.H. “The Supreme Court: Past and Present”. American Bar Association Journal. 59(1973): 361-364. “Levels of the Federal Courts”. Judicial Learning Center. 27 Jan.2015 from: http://judiciallearningcenter.org/levels-of-the-federal-courts/ Read More