American Government: Judicial Branch

1. In order for a court to hear a case, it must have jurisdiction. What is jurisdiction? Distinguish between original jurisdiction and appellate jurisdiction.

The term jurisdiction is used to refer to the legal authority or power of a court, government, or administrative body to administer justice, make decisions, and enforce laws within a defined geographic or specific subject matter area. The term also subsumes the scope and degree of authority that is assigned by operation of law to govern and regulate people and their actions. According to the editors of American Government (hereinafter the text), original jurisdiction is constitutionally reserved to the Supreme Court. In this regard, the text states, In cases of original jurisdiction the courts cannot decide the U.S. Constitution mandates that the U.S. Supreme Court must hear cases of original jurisdiction (chap. 13).

Therefore, all cases besides those involving disputes between the several states or those involving foreign powers are relegated to appellate courts. This also means that original jurisdiction refers to cases that are heard for the first time by the Supreme Court, whereas appellate jurisdiction involves courts hearing cases on appeal from lower courts and potentially changing their decisions. The responsibility for developing the judicial system and creating the lower courts was delegated to Congress, leaving the Supreme Court primarily focused on its appellate role (chap 13).

2. How does a case come to be heard by the Supreme Court? Describe how cases are selected.

Despite the plethora of cases that the Supreme Court has heard on an urgent basis in recent months, the decision to agree to accept a case, termed a writ of certiorari (cert) is rare. In this regard, the text advises that the Supreme Court typically accepts fewer than 2 percent of the as many as ten thousand cases it is asked to review every year (chap. 13.4). The Court selects cases following requests by petitioners for cert based on the decision of at least four of the justices (a practice termed the Rule of Four) (chap. 13.4). Although this decision varies depending on the prevailing Overton window and the individual views of the justices, the text reports that the decision to grant cert is most likely in cases include: (1) conflicting decisions made by different appellate courts of concerning the same issue; (2) cases that involve decisions by appellate courts that conflict with stare decisis; and (3) decisions by state court decisions that conflict with federal precedent (chap. 13.4).

3. After a case has been decided, the Court issues its ruling. Distinguish between the terms decision and opinion. Then, define the following terms: majority opinion, concurring opinion, dissenting opinion. Who writes the opinions?

Following a decision in a case, the Court issues a ruling that consists of the decision itself together with relevant opinions. In this context, the Courts decision represents the final outcome of the case which stipulates which party prevails in the case while opinions provide the legal rationale in support of the Court's decision (chap. 13.4). The Court has a great deal of flexibility with respect to who writes the majority opinion (this represents the opinions of a majority of the justices) and any concurring opinions (which agree with the decision but for different reasons) or dissenting opinions (which are written by justices who disagree with the decision).

4. Briefly describe U.S. district courts and U.S. courts of appeals and discuss the importance of state courts.

The U.S. district court system is comprised of both trial and appellate courts while the U.S. courts of appeal provide the framework for the resolution of decisions that are made by lower courts, including state courts. The importance of state courts is the fact that the criminal justice system would grind to a halt without them. For instance, the text emphasizes that, State courts really are the core of the U.S. judicial system, and they are responsible for a huge area of law (chap. 13.2). Indeed, the overwhelming majority of criminal cases are decided by state courts, but they also adjudicate s majority of civil disputes (chap. 13.2).

5. Justices are nominated to the federal court system by the president and confirmed (or rejected) by the Senate. What considerations go into a presidents choice of Supreme Court nominees?

As recent events in Supreme Court nominations have clearly demonstrated, U.S. presidents enjoy the authority to nominate anyone they want based on personal, professional, political or essentially any other reasons. In most cases, however, presidents select justices for nomination based on a...…eventuality that raises concerns about the future of reproductive rights and access to abortion for women in the United States. In this regard, the Center for Reproductive Rights points out that, The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization abandons nearly 50 years of precedent and marks the first time in history that the Supreme Court has taken away a fundamental right (Roe v. Wade, 2023, para. 3).

In order to justify this otherwise-inexplicable decision, Justice Samuel Alito was forced to use his judicial way-back machine to travel to the 13th century to find seemingly rlevant precedential support. Not surprisingly, this bit of judicial activism not only confounded observers, it absolutely enraged a majority of Americans. Moreover, even Alitos reliance on 13th century precedent was flawed. In this regard, Shoemaker et al. (2023) note that, The difficulty with the claim that abortion was a crime in the thirteenth century is that in the thirteenth century, and well beyond, neither the term abortion nor crime meant what Alito wants them to mean (para. 3).

In fact, the 13th century legal treatises that Alito and like-minded justices relied upon in formulating their decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization were influenced by theological ideologies, and a more careful reading would have revealed that these authors would reject this reasoning today. As Shoemaker et al. (2023) emphasize, The main crime medieval English lawyers might have seen in this modern opinion, therefore, is a failure to consider the health and safety of the mother of paramount importance (para. 3). In other words, the support for the majority opinion in Dobbs was a cherrypicked selection of tangential resources. The implications of the decision are still being played out in American society and abortion has once again become an emotion-charged issue. Although only time will tell if this ugly trend continues or not, the effects for the foreseeable future are sufficiently grim. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights Shoemaker (2023), The Courts decision will likely lead to half of U.S. states immediately taking action to ban abortion outright, forcing people to travel hundreds and thousands of miles to access abortion care or to carry pregnancies against their will, a grave violation of their human rights (Roe v. Wade, 2023,…