Courts

Supreme Court Justices: Qualifications, Appointment, Tenure, and Constitutional Status The Justices of the United States Supreme Court occupy one of the most powerful and unusual positions in the American constitutional system. They are federal judges, but they are not elected by the public. They do not serve fixed terms. They Read more

Supreme Court Opinions, Judgments, and Precedent When the United States Supreme Court decides a case, it does much more than announce which party has won. The Court produces a judgment, explains its reasoning through one or more opinions, and may establish precedent that governs future cases. These three concepts are Read more

How the U.S. Supreme Court Decides Cases The United States Supreme Court is the highest court in the federal judicial system, but the way it decides cases is considerably more structured than simply having nine Justices hear arguments and announce who won. A Supreme Court case passes through a carefully Read more

Original vs. Appellate Supreme Court Jurisdiction The United States Supreme Court has two fundamentally different forms of judicial jurisdiction: original jurisdiction and appellate jurisdiction. The distinction is essential to understanding how the Supreme Court functions because the Court does not handle every case in the same procedural posture. When the Read more

The Jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court The jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court defines the kinds of legal disputes the nation’s highest court has authority to hear and decide. Although the Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States, it does not have unlimited authority over every Read more

The U.S. Supreme Court The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States and the highest judicial authority in the federal judicial system. It occupies a unique position in American constitutional government because it is both a court of last resort and the institution at the top Read more

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, commonly called the D.C. Circuit, is one of the most important federal appellate courts in the United States. Geographically, it is the smallest of the regional federal circuits because its Read more

The Federal Judicial Circuits The federal judicial circuits are the organizational divisions of the federal appellate court system in the United States. They determine which federal courts of appeals generally review decisions from particular geographic areas and, in the case of the Federal Circuit, particular categories of federal cases. The Read more

The U.S. Courts of Appeals The U.S. Courts of Appeals are the principal intermediate appellate courts of the federal judiciary of the United States. They sit above the federal district courts and below the U.S. Supreme Court in the ordinary federal judicial hierarchy. Their central function is appellate review. When Read more