Untitled Flashcards Set

Jurisdiction: the authority/right to hear and decide a case

Precedent: a court decision that guides future cases that ask similar questions.

Majority opinion

• The majority opinion is an appellate (relating to appeals) opinion supporting the court's judgment which receives a majority vote of the justices or judges hearing the case.

Original Jurisdiction: the authority to be the first court to hear a case

Stare decisis: legal term that means “to stand by things decided” or to apply precedent when faced with similar legal issues. 

Dissenting opinion

• A dissenting opinion refers to an opinion written by an appellate judge or Supreme Court Justice who disagrees with the majority opinion in a given case

Appellate Jurisdiction: the authority to review and potentially overrule the decision of a lower court acting on original jurisdiction

Supreme Court

• The Supreme Court is the highest Court in the land because it makes decisions all other courts in the country must follow. 

Concurring opinion

• A concurring opinion is an opinion that agrees with the majority opinion but does not agree with the rationale behind it. Instead of joining the majority, the concurring judge will write a separate opinion describing the basis behind their decision.

Mandatory Jurisdiction: a court must hear every case filed with it

Certiorari petition

• A petition that asks an appellate court to grant a writ of certiorari . This type of petition usually argues that a lower court has incorrectly decided an important question of law, and that the mistake should be fixed to prevent confusion in similar cases.

• A Petition for Writ of Certiorari is an appellee's formal request to a state Supreme Court or to the Supreme Court of the United States to review a case for error or violation that occurred in a lower court.

Originalism/original intent

• the Constitution should be interpreted as narrowly as possible

• aka what the Founders intended

Discretionary Jurisdiction: a court gets to pick and choose which cases it hears

Writ of certiorari

• requests the records of the past case from the lower court

Non-originalism/living Constitutionalism

• the Constitution should be interpreted flexibly, especially when it involves a grey area, vagueness, or a “modern” question

  • Sees the Constitution as a “living document” intended to be interpreted subjective

Dual court system

• The dual court system refers to the coexistence of two separate court systems in the United States: the federal and state court systems. While the federal court system has jurisdiction over cases that involve federal law, the state court system has jurisdiction over cases that involve state law.

“Rule of Four”

• To hear a case, 4 of the 9 Justices must agree

Judicial activism

• judges more willing to strike down laws and set new precedents 

Judicial review: the power of the judiciary to determine whether the actions of other branches are constitutional

Amicus curiae brief

• briefs written by individuals or groups who are not directly involved in a legal case, but have expertise or insight to offer a court to assist in making its decision.

• a written argument submitted to a court in support of one side of a case.

Judicial restraint

• judges defer to elected branches, precedent whenever possible

  • Only strike things down when they clearly violate the Constitution