Article III Review

Judicial restraint

Judicial restraint is a theory of judicial interpretation that encourages judges to limit the exercise of their own power. It asserts that judges should hesitate to strike down laws unless they are obviously unconstitutional, though what counts as obviously unconstitutional is itself a matter of some debate.

Judicial Review

Judicial review is the doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with judicial review power may invalidate laws and decisions that are incompatible with a higher authority, such as the terms of a written constitution.

Justice's term

Lifetime

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court formed the basis for the exercise of judicial review in the United States under Article III of the Constitution.

9 Supreme Court Justices

Scalia, Thomas, Alito, ROBERTS Ginsberg, Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer, Kennedy

Chief Justice

The chief judge of the Supreme Court

Trial of all crimes by jury

The right to have a jury of your peers decide a case of guilt or innocence

Qualifications for a Justice

There are no official qualifications for becoming a Supreme Court justice. The Constitution spells out age, citizenship and residency requirements for becoming president of the United States or a member of Congress but mentions no rules for joining the nation's highest court.

Writ of Ceritiori

a writ (order) of a higher court to a lower court to send all the documents in a case to it so the higher court can review the lower

Corruption of blood

one of the consequences of attainder. The descendants of an attainted person could not inherit either from the attainted criminal (whose property had been forfeited on conviction) or from their other relatives through the criminal.

Original jurisdiction

original jurisdiction of a court is the power to hear a case for the first time, as opposed to appellate jurisdiction, when a court has the power to review a lower court's decision.

Strict construction/Originalism

strict constructionism refers to a particular legal philosophy of judicial interpretation that limits or restricts judicial interpretation.

Loose construction/Living Constitution

the Living Constitution (or loose constructionism) is the claim that the Constitution has a dynamic meaning or that it has the properties of an animate being in the sense that it changes.

Treason

the crime of betraying one's country, or giving aid and comfort to the enemy especially overthrow the government. Must have confession or two witnesses

Federal District Courts

the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States district court. Each federal judicial district has at least one courthouse, and many districts have more than one. The formal name of a district court is "the United States District Court for" the name of the district—for example, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Supreme Court

the highest federal court of the United States. Established pursuant to Article III of the United States Constitution in 1789, it has ultimate (and largely discretionary) appellate jurisdiction over all federal courts and over state court cases involving issues of federal law, plus 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, although it may only act within the context of a case in which it has jurisdiction.

US Court of Appeal

the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system. A court of appeals decides appeals from the district courts within its federal judicial circuit, and in some instances from other designated federal courts and administrative agencies.

Stare Decisis

the legal principle of determining points in litigation according to precedent.

Discretionary Appellate Jurisdiction

the power of a court to review decisions and change outcomes of decisions of lower courts. Most appellate jurisdiction is legislatively created, and may consist of appeals by leave of the appellate court or by right. Depending on the type of case and the decision below, appellate review primarily consists of: an entirely new hearing (a non trial de novo); a hearing where the appellate court gives deference to factual findings of the lower court; or review of particular legal rulings made by the lower court

Appellate jurisdiction

when a court has the power to review a lower court's decision.

Judicial activism/Legislating from the Bench

when judges substitute their own political opinions for the applicable law, or when judges act like a legislature (legislating from the bench) rather than like a traditional court.