Getting to Know US Courts & Constitutional Law
You will research a current state and a current federal trial court issue, discover and analyze how the court name, type, level, and jurisdiction compare, and contrast, and then discuss with academically sound support, how the trial and appeal processes differ in state and federal courts.
Second, you will research a current constitutional issue in the news and analyze, with supporting arguments and academically sound support, the constitutional issues that are raised, and then discuss how the case would progress through the courts, in order to reach the US Supreme Court.
Organize assignment according to the following format, using subject headers in your assignments for each discussion point below:
- Introduction
- Analysis
- Discussion
In the subsequent discussion a current state and a current federal trial court issue is discussed and an effort to analyze the same is done along with a current constitutional issue in the news is also analyzed. An effort to understand the procedure of the state and the federal trial court is also attempted herewith.
The maximum legal cases are determined in the state trial courts, the principal body of the government that is the state court at the lowest level in a court system of the state.(Gibson, 2011)The criminal and civil trials of O.J. Simpson were performed in both the California trial court. Based on the precisecomposition of your court system of the state, trial courts can be city or public courts, justice for the peace or JP Courts, circuit courts or county or even provincial trial courts.
Nearly all states possess two trial courtsstages: trial courts with precise jurisdiction and trial courts with restricted jurisdiction. Jurisdiction actually means to the categories of cases a court is capable to justify. We may consider the exampleof trial courts of restricted jurisdiction —that is able to include magistrate courts, municipal courts, county courts and justice of the peace courts (these courts give justice to a few categories of juvenile cases, civil cases, minor criminal cases and cases on traffic violations).(Lim, 2013)
The majority legal issues are resolute in these categories of trial court.
A number of trial courts with restricted jurisdiction as wellhave pre-trial hearings for further serious illegal cases.
Courts of general jurisdiction comprise superior courts, circuit courts, district courts, or courts of common appeals, based on the state.(Owens, 2011)These courts justify lawsuits that encompass superior amounts of capital or furtherseverecategories of offenses which the cases judge in trial courts of restrictedauthority.
State Courts
A lot of states also possess particular trial courts which attend to cases connected to a very precisesector of the law. These courts are able tocomprise family law courts, probate courts, small claims courts and juvenile courts.(Benjamin N. Cardozo, 2010)
After thatlevel up in the characteristic state court coordination are the appellate courts. These courts don’t organize trials; on the contrary they evaluate the conclusions and measures of the trial courts in thearrangements and moreoversupport or overturn their judgments or adjust the quantity of a financialprize, from time to timethese appellate courts organize retrials.
The judgments of the Lower court are not regularly appealed. One must begin an appeal and offer a legal basis for such an action.(Nussbaum, 2010) Each of the states possesses a court of last alternative, usuallytermed as the Supreme Court. Even though the decisions ofSupreme Court are concluding within the system, from time to timecases may be demanded to the U.S. Supreme Court; more like the appellate courts the supreme courts also examine the assessment and the measures of lower courts. These courts do not organize trials.
Laws related to bankruptcy can influence state courts in a lot of ways:
1. By staying anextensivediversity of state court events;
2. bydepictionof state court proceedings taken in breach of a stay void or voidable;
3. by liberationof amountoverdue sustained in state procedures and by liberation of claims which might otherwise be hoisted in such measures;
4. Bykeeping away from liens made by proceedings of the state;
5. By expanding the constitutional,contractual orlegal period of time within which convinced nonbankruptcy acts can be used.
As a result, between other aspects, state court jury should:
1. Studythe working of bankruptcy stay, i.e.: When and To what do they apply, What are their effects, How their property may be finished, customized or abolished.
2. Set uppolicies or events to make the most of the likelihood which they will be trained of any appropriate stays.
3. Determinethe category of debts which are dischargeable and which are not.
4. Createanswer of fact and law to exploit any collateral estoppelsproperty they might possess.
5. Approachpermission decrees and devises support and property settlement responsibilities in behaviorswhich will successfully protect obliges.(Marianne B. Culhane, 2005)
Parliament has vested all authority over matters related to bankruptcy in the United States district courts. The district courts possess eliteinnovativeauthority over the bankruptcy case itself and innovativehowever non-exclusive, authority over civil events arising in or under, a bankruptcy case.(Lee Epstein, 2012)
State Court Issues "The Bankruptcy-State Connection"
The district courts are operational to cease and permit state courts to continue in civil cases where comity or the attention of justice point to that the substancemust be explained at the state court. Section 1334 of Title 28, U.S. Code, also necessitates compulsorynonparticipation upon timely movement by a party. Where the federal courts, not present bankruptcy, would not haveauthority over the case, and the case is either (i) awaiting in a state court at the time the movement is filed or(ii) The case happen under state law and the proceeding be able to be timely judged in state court.(McCloskey, 2010)
The majority of the federal court arrangement is categorized into districts and circuits. In every statethere is at least one federal district and the states with high population may possess a number of districts for example Texas has eastern, western,northern andsouthern districts.
Normally, central lawsuits originate at the district level in a federal court. Maximum of these cases are civil and are not usually criminal, cases concerning legal issues which comes within the authority of the federal government or the not state government. If in case a lawsuit concerns with a categories of federal law, it is taken to in a particular federal court. Bankruptcy court,Tax court,court of veteran appeals, and court of federal claims are all examples of particular federal courts.(AK Reitler, 2012 )
Every federal process comprisesa number of districts and is also the home to a Federal Court of Appeal, these categories of courts works as an equivalent body to a state appellate court.
At the very pinnacle of the federal court system stands the Supreme Court of the United States. The legal explanations of the Supreme Court are The Final Word on the law in this nation. The nine top judges who actually are responsible for the hearings on the Supreme Court are chosen by the President and accepted by the U.S. Senate. (J. Scott Harr, 2014)They have the power to remain on the court until their death or they may also resign as per there will.
The Supreme Court of the United States pass judgment on only a very few quantity of cases. It can be clearly understood that so as to get to that level, any case have to usually effort its way up throughout the inferior tiers of the state court system or the federal method. The judges decide the cases they pay attention to every year depending on the implications of the case for Americans on the whole or for a certain community that is also part of the society, not just the effect on the bodies that are actually concerned in the lawsuit itself.(Karlen, 2014)
Jurisdiction
A few cases of the Supreme Court are follows:
Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka This verdict was the commencement of the end of racial separation in public schools in America.(D Smith, 2014)
Roe vs. Wade Gave all women in American the authority to make a decision for themselves, in discussion with their doctor, if or not to have an abortion.
Miranda vs. Arizonathisverdict gave individuals who got arrested the authority to be informed of their legal rights when they are getting arrest.(O'Connor, 2012)
The Constitution of America only permits certain categories of cases to be judged by the federal courts. In common, these courts are restricted to cases which occupyimportant factors like Issues of constitutional law, definite issues between residents of different states, Issues between U.S. citizens and foreign persons, and issues that engage both federal and state laws.(Tushnet, 2009)
The legal system of the state is emphasized on the adversarial procedure, which refers that primary to all court eventsin spite ofof the court, is the conviction that all bodies in a legal argumentshouldhave an equal prospect to explain their case to a judge or jury who shall remain neutral at any circumstance and to find the flaws in the statements of the other side. The rules are applied to both parties giving them equal opportunities of winning. This obligationassists to level the playing field, making certain that everybodygets fair treatment.Attorneys are taught regarding these rules in their law school.(Choper, 2013 )
In the year 2005, with the departure of Justice O'Connor and the loss of Chief Justice Rehnquist, President Bush selected John G. Roberts Jr. to take the responsibilities of Rehnquist and Samuel A. Alito Jr. to take the responsibilities ofO'Connor. These actions, particularly that of Alito, who was established in 2006, were normallyunderstoodas growing the conservatism of the Court, as revealed by its maintenance of a federal law prohibiting the late-term abortion process abortion adversaries have referred as "partial-birth" abortion and its judgmentthatpowerfullyrestricted the quantity to which school districts might use race so as to avoid re-segregation.(Liptak, 2012)
A distinguisheddecision of the new Court firmed that the president be no longer having the power to use military commissions which had not been certified by Congress to try overseas terror suspects. The judgment seemed to destabilize the Bush administration, which was very old but lawfully untested statement that the constitutional powers of the president to protect the United States were not matters to congressional legislation. (Carrubba, 2009)The judgmentreversed an appeals court verdict that had been determined in part by the new chief justice, who has notparticipates in the verdict. US President Barack Obama allotted Sonia Sotomayor in the Court in 2009; observed as a liberal, she took the place of Justice Souter and turned out to be the Court's first Hispanic-American associate.
Federal Courts
In 2010 Elena Kagan was chosen to the Court, at the place of the retiring Justice Stevens. Succeedingdistinguished and contentious decisions comprise the Court's narrow maintenance, in large elements, of the Affordable Care Act in 2012, and two conclusions, on paper (2013, 2015) by Justice Kennedy, which extended legitimateconstitutionalappreciation and defense to same-sex marriage.(Alexander, 2012 )
Current constitutional issue in the news
Hotze v. Burwell engage the meet to the person and companyauthorizationandprovisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The plaintiffs in Hotze is the Texas physician Steven Hotze and his corporation, filed a law suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, in dispute that these requirementsbreach the Origination Clause of the constitution, that provides all bills for building up of Revenue shall start off in the House of Representatives; except the Senate may suggest or harmonize with modification as on other bills. As per the plaintiffs, the ACA is a bill to raise the revenue that did not begin in the House of Representatives.
Thearguments made by plaintiff was rejected by the district court, stating that the ACA is not a bill for revenue-raisingbeneath the Origination Clause and, in the substitute, even if the bill is a revenueincreasing bill, it is nevertheless constitutional since the ACA initiated in the House of Representatives and the amendments of the Senate to the Act were correct under the beginningsection. (Whittington, 2009)
PlaintiffsAfter that the appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit:
On the year of 2014 July 17, CAC filed an amicecuriae concise in the Fifth Circuit for Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon who was the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and delegate Sandy Levin of Michigan who was a ranking associate of the house ways and means commission, representing that the confrontedsupplies of the ACA satisfy the necessities of the Origination Clause. (Huntoon, 2014 )
At the time when the framers drafted the innovative national charter they long the exactequilibrium of power that be supposed to exist among the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Origination Clause was serious and significant to the sense of balancewhich was used, providing the significantprivilege to suggest bills which would influence the national treasury to the House of Representatives, although guaranteeing that the Senate would maintain power of the broad to modify such legislation. Because the Constitution was accepted both of the houses of Congress have esteemed this balance. (Fisher, 2014) The Senate has correctlyutilized its constitutional power to adjust revenue raising bills, except when it has disregardedthe choice of the House by enforcing to originate such bills itself, the House has enthusiasticallyprotected its constitutionallyapprovedpower. Most frequentlythe body has completed this by the use of a blue slip resolution to notify the Senate that the House considers the bill of the Senate or the Senate’s adjustment to a House nonrevenue bill infringes upon the constitutional prerogative of the House to create bills for increasing revenue and that consequently, the House declines to judge the Senate bill.(J Perkins, 2014 )
The ACA meets the necessities of the Origination Clause since it was created in the House as H.R. 3590, the Services Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009, and was thenmodified by the Senate to happen to be the ACA. The SMHOTA was a bill to raise the revenue inside the significance of the Origination Clause, and both example and settled live outreveal that the Senate’s adjustment of the SMHOTA was reliable with the necessities of the Origination Clause. (James Q. Wilson, 2014)Additionally not a solitaryassociate of the House filed a blue slip declaration at the time the ACA was being measured. As amice Senator Wyden and Representative Levin know from their widespreadknowledge and leadership characters in the congress, the breakdown of any associate of congress to lift such an oppositionadditionallyconfirm that the disputenecessities of the ACA please the necessities of the Origination Clause(Kahan, 2011).
On November 14, 2014, the Fifth Circuit decidedthe motion of CAC for disagreement time, assigning 10 minutes to speak for Senator Wyden and Representative Levin. The court listened to the verbal argument on December 2, 2014, and on April 24, 2015, justified that since the plaintiffs had been unsuccessful to sufficientlycreate an impact that would provide them standing, the district court was short of jurisdiction to consider their objection in the first place. On June 8, 2015, the plaintiffs hunted for en banc evaluation by the full Fifth Circuit, which was not entertained on August 17. (SJ Willis, 2015)
The plaintiffs filed an appeal for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court On the year 2015, November 12. After getting an extension, the government filed a concise in resistance to cert. on January 13, 2016. The Supreme Court is likely to decide if to review the case or not in the end of this winter.
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Alexander, J. (2012 ). Military Commissions: A Place Outside the Law's Reach. A Place Outside the Law's Reach. U. Ill. LJ ; https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2115073 .
Benjamin N. Cardozo, A. L. (2010). The Nature of the Judicial Process. Quid Pro Books.
Carrubba, C. J. (2009). The Journal of Politics,. A model of the endogenous development of judicial institutions in federal and international systems , 55-69.
Choper, J. (2013 ). Judicial review and the national political process: A functional reconsideration of the role of the Supreme Court. Quid Pro Books.
D Smith, S. T. (2014). The Contradictions of the Legacy of Brown V. Board of Education, Topeka (1954): A Special Issue of Educational Studies. Routledge.
Fisher, L. (2014). Constitutional Dialogues: Interpretation as Political Process. Princeton University Press.
Gibson, J. L. (2011). Law & Society Review, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5893.2011.00432.x/full. Has legal realism damaged the legitimacy of the US supreme court?. , 195-219.
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J Perkins, D. S. (2014 ). ACA Implementation: The Court Challenges Continue. The Court Challenges Continue. Annals Health L., 23, 59.; https://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/anohl23§ion=16 .
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Kahan, D. M. (2011). Harvard Law Review, . Foreword: Neutral Principles, Motivated Cognition, and Some Problems for Constitutional Law , 1-77.
Karlen, D. (2014). Appellate Courts in the United States and England. Quid Pro Books.
Lee Epstein, T. G. (2012). Constitutional Law: Rights, Liberties and Justice 8th Edition. SAGE.
Lim, C. (2013). Preferences and incentives of appointed and elected public officials: evidence from state trial court judges. The American Economic Review; https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/aea/aer/2013/00000103/00000004/art00009 .
Liptak, A. ( 2012). Court under Roberts is most conservative in decades. Sup. Ct. Preview 48 ; https://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/suemrtpre20§ion=9 .
Marianne B. Culhane, M. M. (2005). Bankruptcy Issues for State Trial Court Judges. A Publication of the American Bankruptcy Institute.
McCloskey, R. G. (2010). The American Supreme Court: Fifth Edition. University of Chicago Press.
Nussbaum, M. C. (2010). From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law. Oxford University Press.
O'Connor, M. (2012). The US Supreme Court revisits Miranda in a trilogy of cases and clarifies some of its principles but does not weaken Miranda's core values. Criminal Justice Studies ; https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1478601X.2012.705526 .
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SJ Willis, H. T. (2015). The wrong house: why" Obamacare" violates the US constitution's origination clause. American Journal of Medical Research; https://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA426766522&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=fulltext&issn=23344814&p=AONE&sw=w .
Tushnet, M. (2009). Weak Courts, Strong Rights: Judicial Review and Social Welfare Rights in Comparative Constitutional Law. Princeton University Press.
Whittington, K. E. (2009). Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy: The Presidency, the Supreme Court, and Constitutional Leadership in U.S. History. Princeton University Press.
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