How is the U.S. judicial system organized to ensure justice?
At fewer than 500 words, Article III of the Constitution, which spells out the powers of the nation’s judicial branch, is remarkably brief. The framers’ brevity on this topic may reflect their thinking that the judiciary would be, in Alexander Hamilton’s words, the “least dangerous” of the three branches. As Hamilton saw it,
Over time, however, the federal judiciary has grown in both size and power in ways the framers could not have predicted.
The Constitution outlines the kinds of cases to be decided by the judicial branch. Article III gives the federal courts jurisdiction in two types of cases. The first type involve the Constitution, federal laws, or disputes with foreign governments. The second are civil cases in which the plaintiff and defendant are states or are citizens of different states.
Nowhere, however, does the Constitution mention the power of judicial review. Nonetheless, in The Federalist No. 78, Hamilton declared that the duty of the federal courts “must be to declare all acts contrary to ... the Constitution void.”
In 1803, the Supreme Court took on that duty for the first time in Marbury v. Madison. In that case, the Court declared a portion of the Judiciary Act of 1789 to be unconstitutional. It thus established the power of the judiciary to review the constitutionality of legislative or executive actions.
Over time, judicial review has become the judicial branch’s most important check on the other two branches. In 1886, in Norton v. Shelby County, the Court summed up what it means to declare an act of Congress or the president unconstitutional:
Ninety-four district courts occupy the lowest level in the federal judiciary. These 94 courts include 89 federal
court districts throughout the country, with at least one district in each state. The five additional district courts are located in Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and three other U.S. territories. Each district court is a trial court with original jurisdiction in its region. District courts are where most cases in the federal system begin.
In the past, civil cases dominated district court caseloads. Increasingly, however, criminal cases are crowding the dockets of these courts, with drug violations leading the way. District court cases are tried before a jury, unless a defendant waives that right. In such cases, the judge decides the outcome of the case in what is known as a bench trial.
Thirteen appellate courts occupy the second level of the federal judiciary. These midlevel courts are known as U.S. courts of appeals. Only a fraction of the cases decided in district courts are reviewed by appeals courts. of these, an even smaller number get heard by the Supreme Court.
Of the 13 appeals courts, one deals with cases arising in Washington, D.C. Another 11 review cases in circuits made up of several states. In 1982, Congress added the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to the judicial system. This 13th appeals court reviews cases nationwide that involve special subjects, such as veterans’ benefits, trademarks, and international trade.
The judges who staff appeals courts sit in panels of three to hear cases. Their primary job is to review district court cases to determine whether the district judge made an error in applying the law in that one trial. Sometimes, however, their decisions have a broader application than the specific case before them. This was true of the decision made by a three-judge panel in the 1996 case of Hopwood v. Texas.
The Hopwood case dealt with the University of Texas Law School’s admissions policy. In an effort to enlarge its enrollment of minority students, the law school gave preference to African American and Hispanic applicants. This practice of making special efforts to admit, recruit, or hire members of disadvantaged groups is known as affirmative action.
An earlier legal challenge to affirmative action policies had reached the Supreme Court in 1978. In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Court held that a university could consider race in admitting students to correct past discrimination and to achieve a more diverse student body. However, schools could not set up separate admission systems for minorities. Nor could schools reserve a quota, or fixed number, of admission slots for minority applicants.
The Hopwood case began in 1992, when four white students who had been denied entry to the University of Texas Law School filed a lawsuit in federal district court. The plaintiffs argued that the school’s admissions policy violated their Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection under the law. They also charged that it violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race in any program receiving federal funding, as the school had done.
After a short trial, the court decided in favor of the university. The presiding judge said that affirmative action programs, while “regrettable,” were still necessary to overcome a legacy of racism. In response, the four plaintiffs appealed their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
The appeals court reversed the lower court’s decision. The judges found that the law school had created a separate admissions policy for minorities, which violated the Bakke rules. They declared the law school’s race-based admissions policy unconstitutional.
Still, the Supreme Court can overturn decisions made in appellate courts. For example, the Supreme Court stepped in when the Hopwood ruling conflicted with the ruling from another appellate court case that allowed colleges to use race as a factor for admission. The Supreme Court overturned the Hopwood decision in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003). In this landmark case, a white law school applicant challenged the admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School, which considered the race of applicants to create a diverse student body. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled in favor of the school, determining that although quotas are illegal because of Bakke, schools can still consider race during the admissions process.
From time to time, Congress has established special federal courts to deal with specific categories of cases. Staffing these courts are judges expert in a particular area, such as tax or trade law. These special courts include both lower and appeals courts.
During times of war, the United States has also set up military tribunals to try members of enemy forces. A military tribunal is a court in which officers from the armed forces serve as both judge and jury. During the American Revolution, George Washington set up military tribunals to try spies. Abraham Lincoln used military tribunals during the Civil War to try Northerners who aided the Confederacy. Franklin Roosevelt ordered military tribunals during World War II to try German prisoners of war in the United States accused of sabotage. In 2006, Congress authorized the creation of military tribunals to try noncitizens accused of committing acts of terrorism against the United States.
Despite their different levels and functions, all federal courts have one thing in common: judges. These judges oversee court proceedings, decide questions of law, and, where no jury is present, determine the outcome of the cases before them.
The Constitution gives the president the power to appoint federal judges with the “Advice and Consent of the Senate.” But it says nothing about the qualifications of judges. In general, presidents look for candidates who have distinguished themselves as attorneys in the state where an opening exists. They also tend to look for candidates who share their political ideology.
In theory, the confirmation process looks simple enough. The president submits a nomination to the Senate. The nomination goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee for study. If approved by the committee, the nomination is submitted to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. The reality, however, is more complex, mainly because of an unwritten rule known as senatorial courtesy. This rule allows a senator to block a nomination to a federal court in his or her home state.
Nominations are blocked through a process known as the blue-slip policy. When the Senate Judiciary Committee receives a nomination, it notifies the senators from the nominee’s state by sending them an approval form on a blue sheet of paper. If a senator fails to return the blue slip, this indicates his or her opposition to the appointment. As a courtesy to the senator, the Judiciary Committee then kills the nomination by refusing to act on it.
Nominees who make it through the confirmation process remain in office, as Article III states, “during good Behaviour.” In practical terms, this means they are judges for life or until they choose to retire.
The only federal judges not appointed to life tenures, or terms of service, are those serving in most of the special courts. With the exception of the Court of International Trade, the creation of these special courts was not expressly authorized under Article III. Instead, Congress created them using its legislative authority. As a result, Congress has the power to fix terms of service for special court judges.
The only way to remove a federal judge with lifetime tenure from office is by impeachment. Over the past two centuries, the House of Representatives has impeached 13 federal judges. of that number, only seven were convicted of wrongdoing in the Senate and removed from office.
Article III also states that the salaries of judges with lifetime tenure “shall not be diminished during their Continuance in office.” This means that judges cannot be penalized for making unpopular decisions by cutting their pay. The purpose of these protections was, in Hamilton’s words, to ensure “the independence of the judges ... against the effects of occasional ill humors in the society."