Skip to main navigation. Federal courts hear cases involving the constitutionality of a law, cases involving the laws and treaties of the U. The federal judiciary operates separately from the executive and legislative branches, but often works with them as the Constitution requires. Federal laws are passed by Congress and signed by the President. The judicial branch decides the constitutionality of federal laws and resolves other disputes about federal laws.
Courts decide what really happened and what should be done about it. They decide whether a person committed a crime and what the punishment should be. Depending on the dispute or crime, some cases end up in the federal courts and some end up in state courts.
Learn more about the different types of federal courts. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. Article III of the U. Constitution created the Supreme Court and authorized Congress to pass laws establishing a system of lower courts. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. The Court will also hear oral argument in the case. At oral argument, the parties and sometimes the United States government will present their arguments and respond to any questions the Justices may have.
After oral argument, the Justices discuss the case behind closed doors and vote on which way to rule. Notably, Justices can change their votes after that initial conference, although that happens only rarely.
Opinions in pending cases are generally issued by the last day of the Term in which the Court agreed to hear them, if not sooner. Federal Courts These administrative officials usually serve only for a few years, after which the President can replace them. There are safeguards to prevent officials of this kind from being openly biased or unfair, but because they are appointed so frequently, they are often thought to be more responsive to day-to-day politics than judges are.
Why do we allow these officials to resolve disputes in the way that judges do, even though they do not have the lifetime tenure guarantee that judges have?
The answer is complicated, but the basic idea is that you generally have a right to appeal from a decision of one of these officials to a judge whose independence is protected by lifetime tenure. So judges—including, potentially, the Supreme Court—will have the final word, and that, the Supreme Court has said, is enough to maintain the principle of judicial independence enshrined in Article III.
One part of the answer is easy: the federal courts have the power to decide certain cases and resolve certain controversies, in a neutral and objective way, by interpreting the relevant laws and applying them to the relevant facts.
Here, things get more complicated. Alexander Hamilton famously wrote, in The Federalist No. Yes, judges are independent, and the Founders thought that this independence would protect their ability to uphold the law, even when doing so is unpopular.
Our written Constitution means that some such cases are probably inevitable. At the same time, our commitment to democracy means that they are, and will continue to be, controversial. It establishes the Supreme Court, and it is the basis of the federal court system. It has served those purposes from the very beginning. At the same time, though, when we read this part of the Constitution—and many other parts of the Constitution, too—we can see how much things have changed since the nation was founded, in ways that the Framers of the Constitution could not have predicted.
The Framers were prepared to have a country in which there was only one federal court: the Supreme Court. If that were the nation we lived in today, anyone who had a complaint about anything—about unlawful discrimination, or a violation of the right to free speech, or police brutality—would have to go to state court.
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