What Role does SCOTUS play in our political system?

“…all judicial power in a supreme court and in such inferior courts as congress shall from time to time ordain and establish” Article 3 of the constitution

Morris does not like the supreme court (he finds it boring)

Our congress through acts of law created the entire federal judicial system (except for the supreme court)

  • Congress could abolish the court system, create new courts, do whatever it wants

  • Congress can never rough the Supreme Court

The very first congress knew that they needed to create lower courts

Judiciary Act of 1789

Created a 3 level system that still exists today

Each level of court serves a different function

  1. Supreme Court

  2. Appellate Court

  3. District Courts

Supreme Court

FUN FACTS:

9 justices

Deal with cases with federal law or constitution

total discretion when deciding what cases they hear and don’t hear

  • Does the case seem worth their time?

There is no set limit for how many justices there are

All justices have is there word, they have no way of enforcing their decisions

  • If Trump chooses to not follow a SCOTUS decision, it is a constitutionals Crisis

Appointed by the president, with the “advice and consent of the Senate”

  • Senate approves

Life time appointment

  • as long as they serve in good behavior

  • Congress decides what “good behavior” is

SCOTUS justices can be impeached

  • “Treason, Bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanor”

Most common misbehavior that gets people impeaches is being drunk while hearing cases

  • only happens in lower courts

Monday Conference - every Monday they get together with a stack of cases and they decide whether the court will hear the cases

  • Rule of Four: if there are 4 justices that want to hear the case, then the case will be heard by the court

Chrisman is a freshman student at Washington state university (in the middle of rolling hills where they plant soybeans)

  • Students drink alcohol and join

  • Chrisman joins a fraternity and is coming home drunk, walking in the street carrying alcohol

  • Police stop him and ask for his ID. He said he left it in his dorm room

  • Police tell him to get in the car so they can check the dorm for his ID.

  • Chrisman opens the dorm and is looking for an ID that does not exist.

  • While standing outside, the police see a ton of weed and is arrested

  • At court, Chrisman is found guilty

    • He is wondering why because the police found the weed without a warrant and if it is a violation of the 4th amendment

  • SCOTUS looks at the court and says “our constitution does not require a police officer ignore evidence that is in plain view” And it does not violate the 4th amendment

    • Created an interpretation of the 4th amendment

No Jury in SCOTUS

Supreme court is responsible for Judicial Review

  • Power of the supreme court to rule acts of government unconstitutional

District Court

Court of fact

  • is this your weed? Did you kill your wife?

94 district courts

  • Every single state has 1 district court guaranteed

  • other courts are determined via population

  • California has 4

  • No body lives in Wyoming (1 district court)

Vast majority of cases live and die here

Only for federal crimes

Court of Appeals

Court of procedure

You cannot appeal because the jury got it wrong

  • only cares about if all the rules were followed

There are 13-ish districts

  • each district has 1 court of appeals

These judges are appointed by president, approved by senate

Serve for life

Choose what cases they hear

Determine if the rules were followed

hear 50,000 cases a year

Are the judges ideologically different based on where they are from?

  • ACLU sued California that said the law that said "students have to say the pledge of allegiance” violates separate of church and state

    • “One nation under God”

  • ACLU won in the federal district court, got appealed which went to the appeals court in San Francesco, and they issued a stay

  • There are ideological differences in the justices

    • they each have different interpretations of the law

51 court systems

FEDERALISM

  • Every state’s court system looks like the federal system

    • state supreme court - tell us what state law mean

    • state appeal court -

    • State trial court - tell us if someone has violated state law

You can jump from state trial court to the federal Supreme court

The right to counsel does not exist in the constitution

  • if you are poor, the government does not have to provide you with one

    • this right was given to us by Gideon v Wainwright and jumped from state trial court to SCOTUS

99.9 % of people deal with the state court

  • federal court deals with way more troubling issues

Judicial Review

Power of SCOTUS to rule laws unconstitutional

  • Law passed by government, and Supreme Court has to decide if the law follows the constitution

Requires interpretation of the constitution and the law in question

Constitution

Law

Why?

  1. Broad Principles (natural law)

  2. Absolute terms (cannot possibly be absolute) (Congress make “no” law pertaining to the exercise of our religion? DnD, Satanic Panic, Moral Panic. What if your religion forces you to hurt people?)

  3. Relative Terms (unreasonable search and seizure, what is considered unreasonable vs reasonable)

  1. Broad Principles

  2. Absolute Terms

  3. Relative Terms (use of vague language because politicians cannot agree)

How?

  1. Read it (relevant part of the constitution and what it laterally says)

  2. Look at the context in which the constitution was created (what were they trying to achieve when they wrote this part of the constitution. Federalist papers, documents created by the framers of the constitution)

  3. See how the constitution has been applied in the past. (Need to understand how past courts have ruled on parts of the constitution. Read past supreme court decisions that apply and we understand what the constitution means)

  1. Read it

  2. Look at the context

  3. See how it is applied (don’t have the same precedent. Look at the incidents at when a person has been convicted for practicing their religion and what law they were convicted under)

We end up with the best understanding of the law and the constitution

  • then ask are they compatible?

    • If yes, the law is fine

    • If not, the law is struck down

When SCOTUS reaches a conclusion, it does not simply slam the gavel down.

  • they instead explain the process and state the part of the constitution is important, what the framers through, and the precedent, and how it all combined to equal their decision

  • Can take weeks to deliberate a case

  • At the end they vote to prepare to write an opinion

Opinion

  • Supreme courts official interpretation of the constitution

    • 5-4 ruling, the majority will be the official interpretation of the constitution

    • the 5 justices then write out a long opinion all to explain that a particular law is consistent or not consistent with the constitution. They have little helpers called “clerks”

      • This is then a future example on how the constitution has been applied in the past

Not concerned with what people did to be in violation of the law, but weather or not the law that was created (under which you were convicted) should exist at all. Does government have a right to make a law to stop you from doing what you are doing?

What does an opinion look like?

  1. Facts: Event, Legal history of the crime

  2. Question: Does this ____ law which states ____ violate the _____ amendments to the US Constitution? (fill in the rest).

    1. Does not ask whether the person is guilty or innocent. Ask whether the law itself violates the constitution

      1. EX: Does this Mississippi Law which states you cannot have obscene materials violate the 1st amendment to the US constitution?

  3. Rule: Yes or No.

    1. Answer the question.

    2. If answer is yes, the law gets thrown out

    3. If no, the law stays and the persons stays in jail

  4. Reasoning: interpret the constitution and interoperate the law

    1. Where you make the money/earn the grade. Part that really matters

    2. Look at precedent and past opinions/cases.

      1. Look at Miller v California, Roth v US, Pope v Illinois and show how your understanding of these cases leads to your decision/ruling

14 Amendment

Our constitution written to

  1. structure our national government

  2. Structure relationship between national and state governments (federalism)

Our constitution says very little about states (says very little about state government, only that they must have one)

The 14 amendment addresses states directly.

basically ignored for 100 years

1960s - Warren Court (Earl Warren)

  • Warren believes the constitution needs to keep up with the times and SCOTUS should play an active place to lead the nation to progress

  • Urges the court to think about the meaning of the 14 amendment and the due process clause

    • What does “liberty” mean?

Due process extends way beyond the CJ system

  • College behavior, Professors violating handbook are given due process

Due Process clause

“No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law”

Civil Liberties - Personal rights, individual rights. Freedom of speech, press, speedy trial, trial by jury. All the rights. Associated with the due process clause of the 14 amendment

Equal protection Clause

All states must “equal protection of the law

Civil Rights - (MLK). States treating all people the same when it comes to the law, no discrimination.

Liberty? Incorporation Theory

Incorporation Theory - The world liberty used in the 14 amendment refers to all the liberties found in the bill of rights. (so what?)

  • The bill of rights includes civil liberties

  • When bill of rights was adopted, it only applied to the federal government

    • Protection against the federal gov, not state gov

    • States could do whatever the states thought was a good idea (segregation)

the 14 amendment is “driving” the bill of rights to the states

  • “Alabama, you have to follow all of the bill of rights”

  • Protection against state governments

SO WHAT???

  • All judicial review questions must include the 14 amendment

    • 1st amendment doesn’t mean anything without the 14 amendment bussing the bill of rights to the states

  • Creates national standards for all of their rights

    • You have constitutional rights everywhere, no matter what state you are in

  • Makes US more homogeneous (less democratic)

    • creates less diversity between Utah and Nevada