CJ 2302 - Study

Circuit Courts in Supreme Court & District

3 circuit courts along with 13 district courts. Circuit courts made up of 2 justices and a district court judge.

Number of Supreme Court Justices & type

6 justices; 3 from North and 3 from South - all federalists.

Res Judicata

A controversy that has already been adjudicated, thereby barring a new legal action.

Common Law

A legal system inherited from England based on tradition or precedent rather than statutory law or fixed legal codes; law the result of judicial decisions as opposed to legislative enactment.

Inquisitorial System

A legal system where the court or a part of the court is actively involved in investigating the facts of the case, as opposed to an adversarial system where the role of the court is primarily that of an impartial referee between the prosecution and the defense. Inquisitorial systems are used in some countries with civil legal systems as opposed to common law systems. Civil law.

Industrial Revolution

A period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of the times. This provoked calls for regulation of what was increasingly a commerce which went well beyond state borders.

Rational Law

A system in which there is an application of general principles to specific facts (cases)

Civil Law Systems

A system of law using statutes or codes in which precedent is absent as a legal concept; statutes and court decisions that involve noncriminal matters.

In early legal education,

There were no law schools in the colonies.

Positive Law

Thomas Aquinas states that positive law (law derived out of the political process) violates natural law; it is not law but a corruption of law.

Equity

Legal standard that refers to a concern for fair-ness of outcome. Often implemented through the use of injunctive relief and judicial review.

Earliest law school

Litchfield, Conn. In 1784.

Articles of Confederation

An agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution. It was drafted by the Continental Congress in 1776-77, went into use in 1777 and was formally ratified by all 13 states in 1781. The Articles gave legitimacy to the Continental Congress to direct the American Revolutionary War, conduct diplomacy with Europe and deal with territorial issues and Indian claims. Nevertheless, the confederation type of national government proved to be too weak and in 1789 it was replaced with a federal government with the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.

Colonial Era in relations to Blackstone

Any human law contrary to natural law has no validity.

Natural Law

Belief that there is a code that is higher/ supersedes positive (man mad) law.

What is law

Body of rules enacted by officials in a legit matter.

Criticisms of Legal Education

Case law was an evolutionary process that placed the brakes on legislatures' statutory interventions into natural legal processes.

First Professorship

College of William & Mary in 1779

Supreme Court

Could not give advice to the president "officially". Supposed to be stand alone.

Colonial Era in relations to court

Courts served as legislative, executive, and judicial branches of county government.

Law Schools and Lawyers themselves

Harvard Law School (Christopher Langell appointed professor of law in 1870 and dean of law in 1875).

English Common Law

Laws made up by the judicial courts instead of the executive branch or legislative statues.

Social Contract

Played an important historical role in the emergence of the idea that political authority must be derived from the consent of the governed.

Sovereign Immunity

Rule of law that a nation or state is exempt from a lawsuit (unless legislation specifically waives immunity).

Procedural Law

Specific instructions for invoking substantive law.

Stare Decisis

Stand by the decision and do not disturb what is settled is the basis for adhering to precedent in common/ case law adjudications.

Adversarial System

System of fact- finding used in American trials in which each side is represented by an attorney who acts as an advocate. Common/Case law.

Social Darwinism

Theory of natural selection supplied the conceptual ammunition for an ideology (later labeled as social Darwinism) which allayed the qualms of the rich about not helping the poor by telling them that the latters sufferings were an inevitable price which could occur only through the struggle for existence ending in the survival of the fittest and the elimination of the unfit ( Andreski 1971: 26).

First Professorship extended to

Yale, Columbia, University of Penn. (private), Univ. of VA., and Univ. of Maryland.