Riley Srogus
Prof. Illario
CJ 1010
The United States Court System
We’ve all know someone who has had a dealing with the court system, from parking
tickets, to drug issues, gun rights, etc. There are two parts to the court system of the United
States, known as the “Dual Court System” it is important to understand the history of our federal
and state courts and the issues we seen between them.
The American judiciary system was founded under the judiciary act of congress in 1789.
Much of the debate at the time was if they should establish lower federal courts or rely on state
courts to handle federal jurisdiction.
The Judiciary Act of 1789 established three different federal courts. The Supreme Court,
district courts, and circuit courts. To protect the induvial states legal traditions the district and
circuit courts kept the states rules for jury selection and court proceedings.
At the time the lame-duck Federalist majority believed that congress needed to take
control over the federal court system at any expenses to the state courts which pushed them to
enact the judiciary act of 1801. Republicans saw this reorganization of the court system as an
attempt to take back control after the federalists lost control of congress and the presidency to
democratic-republican candidate Thomas Jefferson.
The expansion of the United States lead to multiple problems with how the court system
was ran. The number of seats in the Supreme Court changed from 1807 to 1937 from seven to
nine seats. With some states being so far away the Supreme Court established circuit court
jurisdictions without having someone from the Supreme Court even present.
In 1789 Congress intended to have the judicial system able to manage the entire nation as
it grew. When California was entered into the Union in 1850 congress temporarily added a tenth
seat to the Supreme Court to handle the western states which was removed in 1866.
Congress in 1891 established separate courts of appeals in each of the nine regional
circuits with each circuit adding an additional judge. One of the largest reasons for this was in
1890 the Supreme Court had more than one thousand, eight hundred cases. Initially, the federal
courts attempted to limit certain types of cases or limit the cases that were appealed which
involved less than five thousand dollars.
Some of the most important changes to the federal system occurred in the twentieth
century. Firstly congress divided existing circuit courts to create the tenth Circuit Court in 1929
and the Eleventh Circuit court in 1980. Congress also established the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the federal courts in 1982. Many states were further changed to establish more district courts
which are served by multiple judges. In just the twentieth century the number of district judges
increased from sixty seven in 1900 to six hundred and seventy eight in 2006.
The court system that was created in 1891 is still defining the court system today. We
still see the three tiered structure in the federal court system and implications it has on local
courts as well.
Over time the state courts have expanded and built tiered systems within themselves.
State courts have broken in to multiple parts like local Trial Courts of Limited Jurisdiction, to
state trial courts of General Jurisdiction, which leads to the State Courts of Appeals.
In most criminal cases, the laws that govern the violation are state laws so they are
mainly handled in state courts. Unless of course congress decides to “criminalize” the behavior
then the offence becomes part of something know as concurrent jurisdiction. Some of the
problems with concurrent jurisdiction is when the state court system and federal court system
have contradicting laws.
In chapter three of the textbook I saw that fifteen states allow for marijuana use for
medicinal purposes. Federal law states that possession sale and distribution of marijuana is a
crime. Today some states have even allowed for the recreation use of marijuana to be legalized.
Which means that you could go to a state supported store to purchase marijuana, and as you walk
out a federal agent could arrest you for the possession of a legally purchased substance. There
are other cases of contradicting laws in state and federal courts. From health care laws, necessary
identification for drivers licenses, and gun laws.
What happens when the courts have contradicting laws? It becomes a very tricky
situation. There is a lot of debate of what the federal courts can do when the state courts have
made a contradicting decision. Mostly these arguments are based on the 10th Amendment.
The case of Printz v. United States caused the Supreme Court to say that state agencies
did not have to perform federally mandated background check, while federal agencies were
allowed to conduct background checks. Basically saying, “The states don’t have to perform the
check but can’t do anything to stop federal agencies from doing it.”
In 2014 a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals struck part of the Affordable Care out as
subsidies to help Americans pay for insurance were illegal. Later that day a separate panel based
in Richmond, Virginia handed down a contradicting ruling in a different case approving the
subsidies.
Since the beginning of the court system it seems that there has been constant strife over
who’s in charge of who, and who makes the most important laws. This appears to lead to
constant battling over what is right for the citizens of this country. Hopefully we can continue
forming a system that has been two hundred and twenty six years of hard work to improve the
American dream.