Article III

Article III

Sources of Judicial Power

The Federal Judiciary derives all of its power from Article III of the Constitution. Article III begins with, "the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court," thus creating the Supreme Court and allowing Congress to set up lower federal courts as it deems necessary. The power vested in the judiciary allows the courts hear "cases and controversies" which arise under the specifically enumerated areas within Article III. The Supreme Court is granted original jurisdiction in a few limited areas, and appellate jurisdiction in nine other areas. Limitations on these powers come from Article III itself, and from the enactment of the 11th Amendment.

The Constitutional Convention saw the need for a federal judiciary because of the extremely limited authority Congress had under the Articles of Confederation to create one. The members of the Convention feared that in the absence of a federal judiciary, the state courts would not fully enforce federal laws, the Constitution would not be uniformly applied, there would be no body of government to resolve disputes between states, and that a federal judiciary was needed for those times when federal and state interests were not identical.

Judicial Review

The single most important decision in the history of Constitutional Law came in the case of Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803). President Adams was on his way out, to be replaced by the Republican Jefferson, when he appointed John Marshall as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Marshall, like Adams, was a Federalist. The Federalist Congress had commissioned forty-two new justice of the peace positions in the District of Columbia, and Adams sought to fill those positions before the end of his term. When Jefferson was sworn in, a few of the commissions had not been delivered to the appointees, even though they had been signed by Marshall, the previous Secretary of State. Marbury, one of the appointees, sought to force the new Secretary of State, James Madison, to deliver the commissions by filing suit in the Supreme Court.

Marshall was left with little choice but to deny Marbury his commission; if the Court had granted a writ of mandamus to enforce the assignment, the Jefferson administration surely would not have obeyed it, setting up a showdown between the executive and judicial branches. This decision established five principles which serve as cornerstones of the federal judiciary:

1. The Federal Judiciary has the power to review actions of the executive branch. The court could issue a writ of mandamus to force the executive to enforce the laws of the union, because that is the central role of the executive, but such a writ may only be issued in cases where the court has original jurisdiction.
2. The Court announced that there exists a category of issues, known as "political questions", over which the court does not have jurisdiction. Political questions are those issues over which the other branches of government have discretionary power, ones where an individual's right is not at stake.
3. Article III established the absolute boundary of the court's judicial power. Any issues that lie beyond the scope of Article III are not justiciable. The court used this determination to declare that it did not have the power to hear the Marbury case. The Judiciary Act of 1789 seemed to grant the Supreme Court original jurisdiction in cases involving mandamus, which goes beyond the boundaries of original jurisdiction in Article III. Congress, therefore, could not enlarge the Court's jurisdiction beyond the Article III boundaries.
4. Federal courts had the power to declare federal statutes unconstitutional. While this power is not definitively set forth within the Constitution, Marshall reasoned that the limits placed on the federal government by the Constitution were meaningless if each government body was to determine the scope of its own powers. The federal courts, therefore, held the responsibility of determining the outcome when federal laws conflict with the Constitution.
5. Federal courts are established as the authoritative interpreter of the Constitution. While each branch of government interprets the Constitution in carrying out its duties, the court makes the final decisions in issues where conflicts arise and it has the power to hear the case.

One Supreme Court

Article III creates one Supreme Court, but it does not state any specifics about the makeup of the Court. The specifics of the Supreme Court were left up to Congress, and Congress acted in its first session by passing the Judiciary Act of 1789. This Act set the number of Supreme Court Justices at six, a number which varied until 1989, when it was changed to nine, and has remained constant ever since. According to Article III, all justices are given a life tenure, with a salary that can not decrease within a justice's tenure, and each justice shall hold office only during good behavior.

Article III does, however, define the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and it is clear that the court is one of limited jurisdiction, unlike most state courts which have general jurisdiction. There are only a few issues over which the court has original jurisdiction, and nine other areas in which the court may exercise appellate jurisdiction. Article III also allows Congress to limit the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as it sees necessary.

Inferior Federal Courts

Article III grants Congress the sole power to establish the lower federal courts. The framers decided not to establish lower courts within the Constitution for two main reasons. First, the States might have been reluctant to ratify the Constitution if it established lower courts because they would see it as a further infringement on their power. Second, the framers saw that by establishing the lower courts through the Constitution, it would have been more difficult for the lower court system to grow with the nation; each change in the system would have required an amendment to the Constitution. However, the framers did want the ability to establish the lower federal courts, which indicates that they might not have trusted the state courts to correctly apply federal laws.

Currently, the lower federal courts consist of eleven Circuit Courts, the District of Columbia District Court (the DC Circuit), and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the "CAFC"), all of which serve as courts of appeals. Originally, two Supreme Court Justices and one district court judge presided over each circuit court, a. custom which continued until 1911, when the modern circuit court system was put in place by Congress. These courts of appeals hear cases brought up from the federal district courts which are established within the jurisdiction of each circuit court. The jurisdiction of the lower federal courts is limited by Article III, Section 2, but Congress is able to further limit the jurisdiction because it has the power to establish these courts. The only real limitation Congress must abide by in establishing the jurisdiction of the lower courts is that the jurisdiction cannot be so limited that an issue that the Supreme Court would not be able to hear an issue over which it has jurisdiction.

Tenure of Justices and Judges
In order to establish the independence of the judiciary from the legislative and executive branches of government, the framers saw it necessary to grant every federal judge life tenure as long as each judge maintained good behavior. Congress has the power to determine what constitutes good behavior, and once a judge is found to have violated that mandate, then Congress must start the impeachment process in order to remove the judge from office. This process is the only way a judge may be forcibly removed from office. Additionally, to further establish the independence of the judiciary, Article III states that the salaries of federal judges cannot be decreased during a judge's time in office

Cases and Controversies

Article III states that the judicial power of the federal courts extends to all cases and controversies which arise under the Constitution and the federal laws of the United States. Article III also defines seven other areas over which the federal judiciary has jurisdiction, but the overlying principle that a case or controversy exist applies to these areas as well. This mandate has been taken very seriously by the Supreme Court, and has led to the establishment of the justiciability doctrines to determine whether a case or controversy actually exists. At the very least, this strict adherence has led the court to issue opinions only when a case or controversy exists, and at no other times. Where the high courts of some states advise the legislature on whether a proposed statute would violate the state's constitution, the Supreme Court will not perform in this capacity under any circumstances.

Subject Matter Jurisdiction

The federal judiciary is granted jurisdiction over nine main categories of cases and controversies. The first, and by far the largest category, is that the case must "arise under" the Constitution or the laws of the United States and its treaties. This category makes up what is called federal question jurisdiction, because all cases that fall into this category involve a question of federal law. "Arising under" within Article III was given a very broad definition in Osborn v. Bank of the U.S., 9 Wheat. 738 (1824), but that does not mean that federal courts can hear every case that arises under the Constitution; Congress still has some power under Article III to limit the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. Two possible reasons exist for this broad interpretation of "arising under," both of which are equally applicable. First, there is a need for uniformity in interpreting federal laws, a need which the federal judiciary is best able to accomplish as a national body, and second, at the time of Osborn, there might have been a general distrust of the state courts to correctly interpret and apply federal law.

The other areas over which the federal courts have subject matter jurisdiction are listed in Article III, Section 2: in diversity cases; in cases involving ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; in admiralty and maritime cases; in cases which the United States is a Party; in controversies between states or between a state and a citizen of another state; and between a foreign state or citizen and a U.S. state or citizen. In diversity cases, which are cases between citizens of two different states, Congress is given the power under Article III to limit when these cases can be heard. Currently, the federal courts only have jurisdiction in diversity cases if the case involves more than $75,000, which Congress has defined in 28 U.S.C. 1331.

It is very important to note that the federal judiciary always has jurisdiction to determine whether or not it has subject matter jurisdiction .

Original Jurisdiction

Article III grants original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court in only a very few instance: when the case involves an ambassador, other public ministers and consuls, and when a state is a party. In all other cases, the Supreme Court only acts as an appellate court. When a case involves one of these parties, and the case involves issues which fall under the federal question jurisdiction, then the Supreme Court may hear the case. Congress has passed a statute giving the Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction over cases between two states. When the federal government pursues an action against a state, then the Supreme Court has original, but not exclusive, jurisdiction. A U.S. state may not be sued without its consent, a result brought on by the 11th Amendment. Neither may a foreign state or ambassador be sued without consent. Each of these limitations serves to reduce the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

Appellate Jurisdiction

In all cases that Article III gives the Supreme Court subject matter jurisdiction that do not involve a state or an ambassador, other public ministers and consuls, the Supreme Court may only exercise appellate jurisdiction. However, Congress is given the power to make exceptions to what kinds of cases can be appealed to the Supreme Court. The only caveat to Congress' power is that it cannot so limit the appeals process that the Supreme Court would never be able to hear a case which falls into one of the categories defined within Article III. The reasoning behind this is that if Congress could make such a limitation, it would effectively be amending the Constitution without ever going through the amendment process in Article V.

The Constitution only explicitly gives the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction over cases originating in the lower federal courts; it does not explicitly give appellate jurisdiction to cases originating in the state courts. The decision in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304 (1816), laid the groundwork for Supreme Court review of state court decisions. This review was initially limited to decisions that either invalidated a federal law or upheld a state law against a claim based on the Constitution. It was not until after a 1914 amendment to the judiciary act that the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction was extended to any case where the validity of a federal law is called into question or where a state law is claimed to be repugnant to the Constitution.

Currently, the Supreme Court hears appeals at its own discretion. This is a modern change to the appellate process, which once dictated that the Supreme Court had to hear certain categories of cases.

Effects of the 11th Amendment on Judicial Power

The 11th Amendment states, "The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State or Subjects of any foreign state." This amendment was passed to curtail the subject matter jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts. It prevents all individuals, foreign and domestic, from suing the states in federal courts, but it does not prevent the U.S. or another state from suing a state in the federal courts, nor does it act to limit the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has interpreted this amendment to apply only to state governments, and not to local governments and municipalities.

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