T HE SYSTEM OF COURTS IN THE UNITED STATES

The judicial branch has the responsibility of judging the constitutionality of acts of law.

According to Article III of the Constitution “the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish”.

There are about 100 Federal courts throughout the country, final authority resting in the United States Supreme Court.

Superior courts . The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest tribunal in the United States. It includes a Chief Justice and eight associate justices. They are all appointed by the President and approved by the Senate.

Under the Constitution the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction (i.e., it is the court in which proceedings may be brought in the first instance) in case affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls and cases in which a state is a party. In all other cases coming within the judicial power of the United States, the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction is only appellate, and is subject to exceptions and regulations by Congress.

The Supreme Court cannot alter the Constitution. The Court’s function is to interpret the Constitution, not to Alter or modify it.

The Supreme Court meets on the second Monday in October for a session which generally extends through to July.

The Supreme Court is made up of lawyers who had long and successful experience before they were appointed to the Court. Not all were judges or lawyers in private practice. A Supreme Court Justice may have been a senator, an Attorney General, a teacher in a law school, or even the administrator of an agency that acts like a court. The typical justice was probably appointed at about the age of fifty, and will live from twenty to forty years on the court. He is therefore likely to be somewhat elderly, and also to have lived in close contact with the political world of the previous generation.

Besides the US Supreme Court there are various other Federal courts, including the district courts and (circuit) courts of appeals.

The Federal courts (see the chart below “Federal Court System”) and the regulating agencies that act somewhat like courts, apply the law to particular cases; but they do far more than that. For the words of the written law cannot be all the law. New cases arise, and the law must deal with them. Sometimes Congress passes new laws to deal with new cases.

The Courts of Appeals were organized to relieve the Supreme Court of pressure resulting from accumulation of appellate cases. In general these courts have final jurisdiction over the great mass of litigation not involving constitutional questions. For example, parties from different states have their case heard in a high Federal Court without going to the Supreme Court. A United States Court of Appeals generally comprises three judges. The Chief Justice and associate justices of the Supreme Court are authorized to assign additional circuit court judges to such courts as may need them.

A Court of Appeals accepts the facts sent up to it by the lower courts, and therefore does not need a jury. Its work is to decide on disputed questions of law. As a rule the Court of Appeals sits with three judges together on the bench. This court's principal duty is to protect the Supreme Court from routine cases of no political importance. Its decision may be so clear and well grounded that the Supreme Court will refuse to go into the question further, in which case the Court of Appeals has stated the supreme law of the land, at least for the exact circumstances of that case.

The inferior courts in the federal system have somewhat less political importance, since their principal duty is to settle routine cases where no constitutional question is at stake. At the ground level there are the District Courts with about two hundred district judges scattered over the United States. These courts handle both civil and criminal cases that come under the jurisdiction of the Federal laws. By the Consti­tution they are required to give a jury trial in all except civil cases involving less than twenty dollars. 

The District Courts have original jurisdiction in nearly all cases. That is they collect the facts. The district court is the only Federal court where trials are held, juries are used, and witnesses are called. Criminal cases are tried by a judge sitting with a jury whose duty is to hear the evidence, the speeches of prosecuting and defending counsel, the remarks of the judge and reach a unanimous decision as to whether the accused is guilty or not of the crime he is charged with.

Each state has at least one district court, a few have as many as four. District courts are also found in Washington, D.C., and the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, The Virgin Islands, and the Panama Canal Zone. Each court has from one to twenty four judges, depending on the volume of business, but each judge holds court separately. Certain cases are heard by a three-judge panel. All judges are appointed for life terms by the President with the Senate's consent except those serving in territorial courts who have eight years terms.

The bulk of judicial work in Federal courts is conducted by the district courts. About 100,000 cases a year are tried, mostly civil cases involving such matters as admiralty law, bankruptcy proceedings, civil rights, and postal laws.

The parties may appeal the decision either on the ground that the court made an error in concluding the trial, or on the ground that the law is unconstitutional. The appeals go up to the middle layer of Federal Courts, the (Circuit) courts of Appeals.

Outside the three-layer federal court system there are a number of special courts, such as the Court of Claims, the Tax Court, and the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals. The special courts have been established to handle cases that are difficult for a judge to understand unless he devoted his whole time to this one type of problem. The special courts are on a borderline between strictly “judicial” courts and the administrative agencies with practically judicial powers, through which the government regulates certain kinds of business.

In the United States, the judiciary (which is a collective term for courts and judges) is divided into the national (federal) and state judiciary. Each is independent of the other with the exception that the United States Supreme Court may, under special circumstances involving federal questions, review a state court decision. Jurisdiction of particular courts of judges is determined by either the national or state constitutions and laws.

THE STATE COURTS

The states all have their own courts: a Supreme Court, superior courts, local courts, some states have courts of small claims.

The State courts are set up in a system that looks like the system of Federal courts, with a Supreme Court at the top that has the power to declare State laws unconstitutional. The State courts, however, deal with a different kind of law. Whereas the Federal courts speak mainly of what they find in the Federal Constitution, the State courts rest upon all the law there is, except what has been delegated to the Federal Government. Some of the State law is found in the State constitution and the statutes passed by legislature. But a large part of it is the common law of England, inherited and adapted by court decisions to the conditions and moral judgments of the American people. In Louisiana much of the inherited law is French, brought down from the code Napoleon.

In most of the states the lowest courts are the magistrates or police courts, where the judge or magistrate (the justice of the peace can send a drunk to jail for thirty days, or fine a motorist for speeding, without the aid of jury. Some of the states have special traffic courts, probate courts or other special courts among their courts of small claims. The magistrate (the judge of the lowest court) may also have authority to receive a man accused of murder and decide whether to hold him for trial in a higher court.

 

Task 1. Translate the following words and expressions into Ukrainian.

original jurisdiction, regulations, associate justice, litigation, the district courts, circuit court of appeals, to alter the Constitution, the Court of Claims, a jury trial, original jurisdiction, the highest tribunal, an Attorney General, regulating agencies, special courts, to interpret the Constitution.

 

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