Latest / The Fine Print of Democracy / The Fine Print of The Judicial Branch
Transcript
- Jake: Welcome to the Fine Print of Democracy, a Civics podcast that explores the overlooked rules, processes, and institutions that shape American government. I'm Jake, a civics teacher, breaking down the ideas behind our system of government and the conversations that help us better understand it. Each Thursday episode begins with a reading of a fine print article, followed by teachers' notes, a conversation about the questions, misconceptions, and connections that come up when we teach these ideas in the classroom. Because understanding government isn't just about knowing the rules, it's about understanding why those rules exist and why they matter. Today the judicial branch. The fine print of the judicial branch the branch the Constitution barely describes Most Americans think of the judicial branch as just the nine justices sitting on the Supreme Court. In reality, the federal court system is much larger, more complex, and less defined by the Constitution than it appears. Article two of the US Constitution establishes the Supreme Court and that's about it. founding fathers left the rest of the judicial branch's structure to future generations. Congress was given the power to create lower courts, and today we have district and appeals courts across the country thanks to that authority. The federal justice system that Americans know now was largely created over time by Congress. The Supreme Court is made up of nine justices, not because of constitutional mandate, but because of congressional legislation. In the 250 year history of the United States, the number of justices on the Supreme Court has changed over time. fluctuating between six and ten until Congress settled on nine in the late eighteen hundreds. Federal judges, not just Supreme Court justices, serve for life. Once appointed and confirmed, the only way they can be removed from their position is through retirement, resignation, death, or impeachment, and removal by Congress. Because of the long-term and consequential nature of the position, judges must be nominated by the executive branch and then confirmed by the legislative branch, providing the level of checks and balances between branches, ensuring none grow too powerful. The main purpose of the federal court system, specifically the Supreme Court, is what is known as judicial review. It is the job of the courts to review laws on constitutionality grounds, striking down those deemed to be unconstitutional. This power was not explicitly laid out in the Constitution, but was established by the Supreme Court in the 1803 case Marbury v. Madison. Courts do not make decisions in a vacuum. When judges decide cases, those rulings often become precedent, meaning future courts may rely on them when deciding similar issues. Over time, these precedents help shape how laws and even the Constitution itself are interpreted. While courts cannot rewrite the Constitution, their decisions can't have a lasting influence on how its provisions are understood and applied. Since the country has changed immensely since the Constitution was written, much of the decisions the Supreme Court makes are based on the individual justices' interpretation of the Constitution, meaning what did the Founding Fathers intend the law to be? This can get challenging when deciding on cases that would be completely foreign to the Founding Fathers. such as cases involving any form of technology. Much of the Constitution is written in broad language rather than specific and detailed rules, leaving plenty of room for interpretation. Judges must determine how those broad principles impact the modern day, and different judges will interpret them in many different ways. Some emphasize original meaning and the intent of the founders, while others place greater weight on precedent and how constitutional principles apply to modern society. Because judges may approach the same constitutional question differently, reasonable people can reach different conclusions. This is one reason the Supreme Court decisions are often closely divided and politically controversial. The judiciary was designed to be an independent branch that could check the powers of both the executive and legislative branches. While the judicial is the least defined in the Constitution, it has arguably become the most influential and Shaping laws and statutes that impact the daily lives of millions of Americans every day. Through judicial review, precedent, and constitutional interpretation, courts play a major role in shaping how the Constitution is understood and applied today. In many ways, this influence has grown not from detailed constitutional design, but from how the courts have interpreted and built upon that original framework over time. Ultimately, the judicial branch shows that its power comes as much from development and interpretation as it does from the text of the Constitution itself. And that is the fine print of the judicial branch. Whenever I teach these topics, the most interesting conversations often happen after the explanation is finished. Every lesson has a few things that don't always fit on the page. So let's move beyond the textbook and into teachers' notes. The questions students ask, the misconceptions we unpack, and the conversations that make civics worth teaching. The judicial branch might actually be the easiest branch of government to misunderstand, because when most people hear judicial branch, they immediately picture the Supreme Court. And that makes sense. The Supreme Court is the most famous court in the country, but it isn't the judicial branch. The Supreme Court is one court within a much larger federal court system. This is a good place to start because Article III of the Constitution is surprisingly short compared with the judicial system that exists today. Article three says quote, 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. End quote. And that's it. Now, this is usually where students start wondering, so the Constitution doesn't actually create all the federal courts we have today? Nope. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to create them. And Congress did just that. Beginning with the Judiciary Act of 1789, the federal court system has developed and changed over the decades. That means the federal court system we recognize today isn't something the founders designed in complete detail. They created the basic framework and left Congress room to build a system underneath it. And now you can see you can see a similar pattern with the Supreme Court itself. The Constitution says there will be a Supreme Court, but it never says there will be nine justices. But wait, I I thought there were supposed to be nine. That's what we're used to, but nine isn't a constitutional requirement. The number of justices is determined by Congress, and the court has had different numbers throughout American history. So the important distinction is this. The Constitution creates the Supreme Court, while Congress determines how many justices sit on it and how the larger federal court system is structured. Another thing students often get hung up on is Is what it means when we say federal judges serve for life. Article 3 says, quote, federal judges shall hold their offices during good behavior, end quote. That's the constitutional language behind life tenure. It doesn't literally mean a judge has to remain on the bench until the day they die. What it really means is that they don't serve a fixed number of years. A president serves for four, a senator serves for six, a representative serves for two, but a federal judge doesn't have a term that expires. That being said, a judge can retire, or resign whenever they feel like it. And a federal judge can be removed through impeachment, similar to the impeachment process of a president. So why do we give judges such long terms? The basic idea is judicial independence. If a judge knew their job was up for election in four years, they might have to worry about how their decision would affect their chances of winning. And if a president could simply remove a judge because they didn't like a ruling, judges would have a much harder time operating independently. The president nominates federal judges and the Senate confirms them, but once they're on the bench, they don't have to run for re-election or worry about being fired because the president or member of Congress disagrees with their decisions. And this can create another question. If the president nominates a judge and the Senate confirms them, doesn't that mean the judge is basically part of the president's team? No. The appointment process is political, but once a judge takes office, they in theory become part of an independent judicial system. So what do federal courts actually do on a day-to-day basis? Well, at the most Basic level, courts resolve cases and controversies. They hear the facts, examine the relevant law, consider the arguments, and issue decisions. But there's an important distinction here that students sometimes don't realize. Not every court in the United States is part of the federal judicial branch. The United States has two overlapping court systems, the federal courts and the state courts. State courts are exactly what they sound like. They handle the vast majority of legal cases in the country, including things like divorces, traffic offenses, most criminal prosecutions, property disputes, and violations of state law. State courts are in states. Federal court, however, deals with cases involving federal law, the Constitution, the federal government, and other disputes the federal law gives them jurisdiction over. So if a student asks, does that mean our states' courts aren't part of the judicial branch? The answer is technically yes and no. They're not part of the federal judicial branch, but every state has its own judicial branch with its own courts and systems. So state courts are part of a judicial branch, but not the federal judicial branch. Even within the federal system, courts don't all do the same thing. They operate through hierarchy. At the bottom are the federal district courts. These are generally the trial courts of the federal system. This is where federal cases usually begin. Evidence is presented, witnesses may testify, lawyers make arguments, and a judge or jury can make a factual determination. Above the district courts are the federal courts of appeals. This is where another common misconception comes up. If someone loses a case in a district court, can they just take it straight to the Supreme Court? Usually no. They generally go through the appeals process first. The courts of appeals review decisions made by lower courts. They aren't usually conducting an entirely new trial though. Instead, they're looking at whether the lower court made a legal error. And then at the very top of our federal branch, our federal judicial branch, is the Supreme Court. But even the Supreme Court doesn't have to hear every case that someone wants it to hear. The court receives thousands of requests for review, but it only hears a small fraction. Most cases come to the court through a petition for a writ of certiari, and the justices decide which cases they want to take. Which brings us to one of the most important concepts associated with the Supreme Court Judicial Review. Judicial review is the power of courts to determine whether laws or government actions are consistent with the Constitution. That might sound like an obvious power for the courts to have, but here's the interesting part. The Constitution never explicitly says the Supreme Court has the power of judicial review. So where did that power come from? The answer goes back to the 1803 Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison. The basic story begins at the end of John Adams' presidency. Adams appointed William Marbury to a government position, but his official commission, or letter of appointment, wasn't delivered before Thomas Jefferson became president. And since Jefferson and Adams were of separate political parties, there was some disagreement over whether Marbury should still be appointed. Jefferson's Secretary of State, James Madison, for example, refused to deliver the appointment. Marbury then went to the Supreme Court and essentially asked the court to make Madison deliver the commission. He said the president ordered it. The problem was that Marbury was relying on a law passed by Congress that appeared to give the Supreme Court the authority to do that. Chief Justice John Marshall and the court determined that Congress couldn't give the Supreme Court a power that the Constitution itself didn't give the court. The court therefore declared that part of the law unconstitutional. Think about what just happened here. The Supreme Court was looking at a law passed by Congress and saying, this part of the law conflicts with the Constitution, so we cannot enforce it. That is the definition of judicial review. Chief Justice Marshall explained the idea when he wrote, quote, It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is, end quote. That doesn't mean judges can simply make up whatever laws they want. When courts decide cases, they interpret and apply the law. And when a law conflicts with the Constitution, the Constitution takes priority over everything. The judicial review doesn't mean the Supreme Court gets to review every law whenever it wants. The court needs an actual case involving a legal dispute. Someone has to bring a case, and that case has to give the court a reason to address the constitutional question. So the court isn't sitting around reading every law Congress passes and deciding whether it likes them. The constitutional question comes before the court as part of a real legal case. Which brings us to another important concept, precedent. When an appeals court, especially the Supreme Court, which the Supreme Court is technically an appeals court, when an appeals court, especially the Supreme Court, establish a legal principle, that decision can become what's known as precedent, meaning future courts can look at earlier decisions when deciding similar cases. But if the Supreme Court decides something once, does that mean the answer can never change? Not necessarily. Precedent matters, but it isn't necessarily permanent. Courts generally follow earlier decisions because consistency matters, but they can distinguish a new case from an old one, interpret an earlier decision differently, or in some circumstances overturn precedent altogether. That means Supreme Court decisions can have effects far beyond the people involved in the original case. A decision involving freedom of speech, for example, can become something future courts consider when dealing with other free speeches. Think about the Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges that granted same-sex marriage. That didn't just apply to the plaintiffs in the case Obergefeld, it applied to all the states and same-sex marriage across all the states. And this brings us to one of the more complicated parts of being a judge, interpreting the Constitution itself. The Constitution was written in the 18th century, but courts constantly have to apply it to circumstances the fathers could have never anticipated. Think about technology. The Constitution protects freedom of speech and freedom from unreasonable searches. But the people who wrote those words didn't have smartphones, social media, GPS tracking, or artificial intelligence. They didn't even have light bulbs. So so what does an 18th century constitutional principle mean when applied to a 21st century technology? That's one of the difficult questions constitutional interpretation has to deal with. And there isn't always one obvious answer. Different judges can approach the same constitutional language differently. Some place greater emphasis on the original meaning of the Constitution, while others place greater emphasis on precedent and how constitutional principles apply to modern circumstances. And that's one reason Supreme Court decisions can sometimes contain several different opinions. The majority explains the court's official ruling, while justices who disagree can write what's called dissenting opinions. Justices can also agree with the outcome but disagree about the reasoning. Those separate opinions can influence how future courts understand an issue. They can refer back to all of their written opinions when making future decisions. At this point, it's tempting to reduce the judicial branch to one sentence. The Supreme Court decides whether laws are constitutional. Yes, and that is part of it, but it misses the bigger picture. Most federal cases never even reach the Supreme Court. Most federal judges aren't Supreme Court justices and never will become Supreme Court justices. Most judicial decisions involve ordinary disputes over federal laws, regulations, criminal cases, civil cases. And conflicts between people or organizations. The Supreme Court is at the top of the system, but most of the judicial branch's work happens much further down. And if a student looks at Article III and thinks, that's it, that's that's all the Constitution says about the judicial branch, well, the answer is basically yes. The founders created the Supreme Court, established life tenure for federal judges, and gave Congress the authority to create the rest of the federal court system. A lot of what we recognize today developed afterward. Congress built the federal court system. The Supreme Court established judicial review. Courts developed an enormous body of precedent, and judges have spent more than two centuries interpreting constitutional language and applying it to circumstances the founders could have never imagined. But underneath all of that development, the basic job of the judicial branch remains fairly straightforward. Courts hear cases, resolve legal disputes, interpret and apply the law, and determine whether government actions are consistent with the Constitution. So when you hear judicial branch, picture the entire system. Because the judicial branch is far bigger than the nine people sitting at the top. And that's the thing about civics. The most important conversations don't always happen in the textbook. They happen when we ask questions, challenge assumptions, and try to understand why the system works the way it does. Those are the conversations that happen beyond the textbook, and those are the conversations that make civics worth teaching. Remember, civics is something you keep learning, not something you finish. There's always another rule, institution, or piece of history to understand. Thanks for listening to the Fine Print of Democracy.