Chapter 14: The Courts

Judiciary Act of 1789

The law in which Congress laid out the organization of the federal judiciary, refined and clarified federal court jurisdiction, set the original number of justices at six, created the Office of the Attorney General and established the lower federal courts.

district courts

Lower-level trial courts of the federal judicial system that handle most U.S. federal cases.

appellate jurisdiction

The authority of a court to hear appeals from lower courts and change or uphold the decision.

judicial review

The Supreme Court's power to strike down a law or an executive branch action that it finds unconstitutional.

original jurisdiction

The authority of a court to handle a case first, as in the Supreme Court's authority to initially hear disputes between two states.

constitutional interpretation

The process of determining whether a piece of legislation or governmental action is supported by the Constitution.

statutory interpretation

The various methods and tests used by the courts for determining the meaning of a law and applying it to specific situations.

plaintiff

The person or party who brings a case to court.

defendant

The person or party against whom a case is brought.

plea bargaining

Negotiating an agreement between a plaintiff and a defendant to settle a case before it goes to trial or the verdict is decided.

class-action lawsuit

A case brought by a group of individuals on behalf of themselves and others in the general public who are in similar circumstances.

common law

Rules based on the precedent of previous court rulings rather than on legislation that is used in all federal courts and 49 of the 50 state courts.

precedent

A legal norm established in court cases that is then applied to future cases dealing with the same legal questions.

standing

Legitimate justification for bringing a civil case to court.

jurisdiction

The sphere of a court's legal authority to hear and decide cases.

appeals courts

The intermediate level of federal courts that hear appeals from district courts. More generally, an appeals court is any court with appellate jurisdiction.

senatorial courtesy

A norm in the nomination of district court judges in which the president consults with his or her party's senators from the relevant state in choosing the nominee.

writ of certiorari

The most common way for a case to reach the Supreme Court, in which at least four of the nine justices agree to hear a case that has reached them via an appeal from the losing party in a lower court's ruling.

mootness

The irrelevance of a case by the time it is received by a federal court, causing the Court to decline to hear the case.

cert pool

A system initiated in the Supreme Court in the 1970s in which law clerks screen cases that come to the Supreme Court and recommend to the justices which cases should be heard.

solicitor general

A presidential appointee in the Justice Department who conducts all litigation on behalf of the federal government before the Supreme Court and supervises litigation in the federal appellate courts.

amicus curiae

Latin for "friend of the court," referring to an interested group or person who shares relevant information about a case to help the Court reach a decision.

oral arguments

Spoken presentations made in person by the lawyers of each party to a judge or an appellate court outlining the legal reasons their side should prevail.

majority opinion

A court ruling on which more than half of the members agree which presents the decision of the court and explains the reasoning behind the decision.

concurring opinion

An opinion of the court that agrees with the majority decision, but disagrees on at least part of the rationale for the decision.

dissenting opinion

An opinion of the court that disagrees with the majority decision in a case.

strict construction

A way of interpreting the Constitution based on its language alone.

original intent

The theory that justices should surmise the intentions of the Founders when the language of the Constitution is unclear.

living Constitution

A way of interpreting the Constitution that takes into account evolving national attitudes and circumstances rather than the text alone.

attitudinalist approach

A way of understanding decisions of the Supreme Court based on the political ideologies of the justices.

judicial restraint

The idea that the Supreme Court should defer to the democratically elected executive and legislative branches of government rather than contradicting existing laws.

judicial activism

The idea that the Supreme Court should assert its interpretation of the law even if overrules the elected executive and legislative branches of government.