Structure of the Federal Courts - AP Government and Politics

Article Three of the Constitution leaves a great number of specifics about the Federal judiciary up to later developments. "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," is the most detail it gives about specific courts. Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court hears cases that have been through all levels of Federal appeals courts as well as through State appeals courts.

Court packing was the colloquial term given to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attempts to increase the number of judges in the Supreme Court in the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937. Roosevelt wanted to add more liberal judges to the Supreme Court to further enable the passage of his New Deal legislation.

In the United States Federal court system, the district courts are where the vast majority of court cases are heard and resolved. They are the lowest level of the Federal court system.

There are two reasons why the Constitutional Framers decided to make Supreme Court Justice positions unelected and tenured. The first is part of the system of checks and balances that pervades the American political process—if Justices cannot be removed from office by the Legislative or Executive Branch, then there is an additional layer of balancing of power. This is not an answer choice, however. The second reason is that the Constitutional Framers wanted Justices to be able to make intelligent and sound decisions, free from the corrupting influence of being accountable to the public. If Supreme Court Justices were elected, they would have to make their decisions based on what would get them elected—rather than trying to shape public policy and opinion, they would be subject to both.

Members of the federal judiciary are always appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. They are never elected, and they serve lifelong terms unless they are impeached. Also, Congress decides how many justices to place in the Supreme Court, but the Judiciary Act of 1869 fixed the number at nine.

The Chief Justice as of January 1, 2015 was John G. Roberts. He was preceded by William Rehnquist, who was preceded by Warren Burger, who was preceded by Earl Warren. Roberts was nominated to the position of Chief Justice by George W. Bush and took his seat in 2005. He is known to be conservative and to adhere to tradition and precedent.

The first woman appointed to the Supreme Court was Sandra Day O’Connor, in 1981, by President Ronald Reagan.

There are nine Justices on the Supreme Court of the United States. There were originally six Justices—although this creates the obvious problem that there would be frequent instances of ties; however, it has been set at nine Justices for the majority of its history. The number of Supreme Court Justices is determined by Congress, not by the Constitution.

The current make-up of the Supreme Court is nine justices. The number of Justices has not been stipulated by the Supreme Court. Congressional acts have determined the number of justices and the current number of nine was set in 1869.

Unfortunately, this question doesn't have much of an explanation; it's really just a matter of rote memorization. The correct answer is District Courts, Courts of Appeals (or "Circuit Courts"), Supreme Court.

This follows the basic structure of any court system that allows appeals: trial courts, intermediate appellate courts, and the final appeals court. In the federal system:

• District Court(s) (there are 94 District Courts) are the trial courts;
• Courts of Appeals/Circuit Courts (there are 13, depending on how you count) are the intermediate courts of appeals;
• Supreme Court (only one) is the "court of final resort." In other words, there is no court higher than the Supreme Court.

The other answers are all incorrect as they are either: courts that don't even exist, state courts, or a mix of both.

This is a tricky question. For one, federal judges are not elected. Thus, any answer involving election is incorrect. If you narrowed it down to the three answers that don't involve elections, great job! From here, you have to know that Federal judges are nominated by the President. That leaves us with two answers, only one of which is correct.

The trickiest distinction that is left is that between the House and the Senate. After being nominated by the President, a judge-elect is confirmed (or not--it does happen) by the Senate. One of the better ways to remember that this is the Senate's job rather than the House's is that the Founders meant for the Senate to be sort of an advisory board to the President.

Unfortunately, this is another answer that doesn't have much of an explanation. The current number of Justices is set at 9 (although it can be manipulated by Congress, if they so wish). A good way to remember the number is to think that the number almost has to be odd (otherwise, there could be a tie!).

The other answers are all incorrect.

The correct answer is “life with good behavior.” To explain that slightly further, once an Article III (as in the Constitution) judge/justice is appointed and confirmed, that judge or justice may stay on the bench for as long as: (1) they’re still breathing, and (2) they have maintained the requisite standard of behavior (i.e. “good” behavior).

“Good behavior” is a little hard to explain—it’s a purposefully vague standard. That said, with one notable exception, every federal judge who has been impeached and then removed from office, has been removed for fairly heinous crimes (perjury, accepting bribes, etc). John Pickering is the exception—he holds the dubious honor of being the first federal judge to be impeached and removed from office. His crime(s)? Drunkenness and insanity. Scholars theorize that Pickering was actually removed for political reasons (that’s a rather clever way of saying that the President and most of Congress REALLY didn’t like him).

Thus, the other answers are all incorrect.

This is a fun question. The answer may have been a surprise to some of you (although hopefully it wasn’t). There are no qualifications to be an Article III judge or justice. Really! Look in the Constitution. You needn’t be a certain age, you don’t have to go to law school—or college, or high school, for that matter.

This total lack reflects the Founders’ general apathy toward what they likely considered to be the least important branch. Notice how the President and both chambers of Congress have age (and citizenship) requirements.

9 justices serve on the Supreme Court at a time. This ensures that no case ever ends in a tie with votes, and usually means that one justices vote is the deciding factor in a case.

The method of organizing government by distributing power to different levels of government (usually national and state levels) is also known as Federalism. Separation of power is also a distribution of powers, but within different branches of the national government (legislative, judicial, and executive).

This is a relatively difficult question, unless you have some background with the federal judiciary. That said, the answer choices should have narrowed your focus slightly. At any rate, the particulars in this question delve into hyper-technical aspects of the federal judiciary that are far beyond the scope of your course. In order to fully understand, however, we’ll touch on them briefly.

Federal (Article III) courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, which means they cannot hear any case that they want to—this reflects the principals of Federalism that are deeply embedded in our Constitution. Among the cases that they can hear are: “diversity” and “federal question.”

Put extremely simply, diversity cases must satisfy two requirements: (1) the plaintiff (the one bringing the case) and the defendant (the one against whom the case is brought) must be citizens of different states; and (2) the damages (that is, the ‘award’ for ‘winning’ the case) must satisfy the “amount in controversy” requirement—currently set at $75,000 (Congress changes this every so often to reflect inflation and other variables). In other words, in order to bring a diversity case, the parties on either side of the “v” must be citizens of different states AND must be asking for greater than $75,000 in damages.

The only other way (for the purposes of your course) to get a case into federal court is through a “federal question.” Federal question is exactly what it sounds like—the harm in the case must “arise under” federal law. Take, for example, a plaintiff who is suing his employer under the National Labor Relations Act—clearly this is a federal question because the harm arose under a federal law.

As for the other two answers—divorce and Probate—they are incorrect. The federal judiciary is actually explicitly forbidden from hearing matters of family law (i.e. divorce); that is, Congress has removed family law from the federal court’s jurisdiction altogether. Probate is incorrect because it is a type of court, one that often deals with issues of family law (such as wills).

The federal constitutional court system (as established by the Constitution and Congress) begins with the district courts, of which there are ninety-one in total. District courts are the basic access point for nearly every single federal case and there is at least one in every state. District courts are the only federal courts in which juries are seated and trials are held. Next on the power scale comes the twelve courts of appeal, which review cases appealed to them from the district courts and also are permitted to oversee and enforce orders from some federal regulatory agencies. The nation is split up into twelve judicial circuits, with each circuit serving at least two states – together, these circuits make up the twelve courts of appeal, one for each circuit area. These courts concern themselves with fixing mistakes made by district courts, such as the improper interpretation of a law or an error in trial proceeding. There are no trials or testimonies or juries involved; instead, each court of appeals is normally presided over by one of three judges, who rotate back and forth on a schedule (in rare cases, when a matter is especially vital, all three judges preside at once). All decisions reached by courts of appeals set precedents for their respective district. Finally, the Supreme Court occupies the highest position of authority within the federal court system.

A diversity of citizenship case is a civil case that involves a plaintiff and defendant who reside in two separate states (for example, if a resident of New Jersey is suing someone from Oregon). This also applies to civil cases where a foreign national is involved, although this is less common. District courts ONLY have jurisdiction in diversity of citizenship cases if the case at hand involves at least seventy-five thousand dollars (either an amount in contention or sought in damages). Any diversity of citizenship case that involves less than this amount, regardless of the differing state laws involved, must instead be settled in state court. This restriction was placed by Congress upon diversity of citizenship cases because it is believed that when a large amount of money is disputed and/or sought, a district court is more appropriate to decide the matter than a state court, which may be unfairly biased in favor of its involved resident. A federal judge is presumed to be better suited to resolve the matter because they are impartial, without no respective state allegiance.