scholarly journals In the Beginning There Was None: Supreme Court Review of State Criminal Prosecutions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin C. Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Structural Relationship ◽  
State Court ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Court System ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Federal Jurisdiction ◽  
In The Beginning

This Article challenges the unquestioned assumption of all contemporary scholars of federal jurisdiction that section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 authorized Supreme Court appellate review of state criminal prosecutions. Section 25 has long been thought to be one of the most important provisions of the most important jurisdictional statute enacted by Congress. The Judiciary Act of 1789 gave concrete institutional shape to a federal judiciary only incompletely defined by Article III. And section 25 supplied a key piece of the structural relationship between the previously existing state court systems and the new federal court system that Congress constructed with the Act. It provided for Supreme Court appellate review of certain state court decisions denying the federal-law-based rights of certain litigants.

Public Opinion and the Legislative Process

1946 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 924-935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank V. Cantwell
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Court System ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
The Supreme Court

The rôle played by public opinion in a democracy, particularly as it affects the legislative process, has long been a subject for speculation by political scientists. The advent of controlled quota sampling permits of the study of this important relationship in measurable terms. The object of the present discussion is to trace the interaction of public opinion and the executive and legislative branches of government as they have dealt with a single public question—reorganization of the Supreme Court, as presented to Congress for consideration by President Roosevelt on February 5, 1937. Enlargement of the Supreme Court from nine to fifteen members was the most controversial feature of the general reorganization of the federal judiciary proposed by the President, aimed at speeding up the process of clearing cases through the federal court system, and making the system more “representative” of the wishes of the people.The debate on enlargement of the Supreme Court provides a useful and interesting case study for several reasons. The case as a public issue has a definite beginning and end, ranging from the proposal of the judiciary reform bill by the President on February 5 to the death of Senator Joseph T. Robinson on July 14, 1937. As it was debated by public and legislators, the issue was a relatively clear-cut one, uncomplicated by side issues or utterly foreign events that might have influenced the course of either legislators or the public. Finally, and of decided importance, the American Institute of Public Opinion made weekly measurements of opinion toward the proposal during the entire period that reorganization of the Court was a public question. This permits the correlation of reliable opinion samplings with events in the debate and the observation of their relationship.

Der Wald im Lichte der neueren bundesgerichtlichen Rechtsprechung | Forest legislation in the recent jurisdiction of the Federal Supreme Court

2009 ◽  
Vol 160 (9) ◽  
pp. 263-274
Author(s):  
Alois Keel ◽  
Willi Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Large Scope ◽  
Forest Law ◽  
Federal Jurisdiction ◽  
Forest Legislation ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Forest Status ◽  
Area Planning ◽  
Federal Supreme

With the entry into force of the new Swiss Federal Law on Forests on the 1st of January 1993, the basis of decision-making for the Federal Supreme Court concerning forestry issues has, at least formally, fundamentally changed. This article depicts the development of the Federal Supreme Court's jurisdiction during 2000–2008 concerning the legislation on forests. The analysis of about 100 decisions reveals that the federal jurisdiction has, with regard to contents, barely changed in comparison to that of the federal law on supervision of the forest police of 1902. The most frequent causes of dispute are assessments of forest status, authorizations for deforestation, and forest distance regulations. The Federal Supreme Court merely refined the jurisdiction; it did not, or did not need to disclose fundamentally new lines [benchmarks]. It rather adheres to the restrictive definition of forest and the strict conservation of forests, while the cantons do not dispose of a large scope for the deforestation jurisdiction or the definition of the term “forest”. The Federal Supreme Court grants the cantons more freedom to regulate and implement the forest distance. Obvious changes can be observed concerning the number of forest law cases that have been dealt with by the Federal Supreme Court. Compared to the 1980ies and early 1990ies, they have decreased by more than half. Among others, reasons for this decrease are the cantons' obligation to appoint courts only as last cantonal resort, the improvement of the formal and material coordination of the proceedings, and the introduction of the “static forest term” with respect to building zones in the sense of the federal law on area planning.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Donald W. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Court Records ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
The U.S

This introduction reframes the history of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Hague v. CIO (1939) that guaranteed speech and assembly rights in public municipal forums under federal law for the first time. It lifts the story out of standard treatment as a product of police repression of labor organizers by city boss Frank Hague, exploring instead the case’s broader roots in multiple changes in city governance, policing, the labor movement, civil liberties law, and anticommunism and antifascism politics of the late New Deal era. It urges examination of all sides of the controversy, winners and losers, scrutinizing evidence beyond antiboss sources, including varied newspapers, municipal reports, trial transcripts, labor archives, and federal court records. It views the case as part of a constitutional watershed.

scholarly journals Federalists, Federalism, and Federal Jurisdiction

2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison L. LaCroix
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Party System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Early National ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
Federal Jurisdiction ◽  
Political Turmoil

Historians and legal scholars generally agree that during John Marshall's tenure as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, the federal judiciary expanded its power to interpret the Constitution and asserted with increasing force its authority to speak on behalf of the Union. This single story of judicial nationalism, however, contains two distinct and largely non-overlapping strands. Historians have tended to focus on the Supreme Court alone, to the exclusion of the lower federal courts, and have largely treated early national controversies over the lower federal courts as outgrowths of the political turmoil that accompanied the emergence of the first party system. Legal scholars in the fields of federal courts and constitutional law, meanwhile, have devoted significant attention to the lower federal courts but have largely neglected the history of how those courts developed beyond the key early moments of the Constitutional Convention and the First Congress.

Heeding Congress's Message: The United States Supreme Court Bars Federal Courthouse Doors to Habeas Relief Against All but Irrational State Court Decisions, and Oftentimes Doubly So

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 321-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
De Novo ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
State Court ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
Criminal Convictions ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
Federal Constitutional

Federal habeas corpus challenges to state criminal convictions grew significantly between 1948 and 1996 when traditional de novo review was coupled with an expanding list of federal constitutional protections the Supreme Court made applicable to the states. The landscape changed dramatically in 1996 when Congress amended 28 U.S.C. § 2254 with the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. Old and new procedural barriers to habeas review were codified. Merits review of state court decisions became highly deferential. In a series of recent decisions discussed in this article, most notably Harrington v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770 (2011), the Court strongly expressed its frustration with the failure of lower courts to heed Congress' mandate. Federal courthouse doors are now closed to all but the rare case where there “is no possibility for fair-minded disagreement” the state court acted unreasonably (not just erroneously) in deciding the merits. Review becomes “doubly deferential” when the claim is one where deference is already owed in state court; most notably, challenges to the effectiveness of counsel and to the sufficiency of the evidence. Deference is owed even when the state court issues a summary merits decision without opinion.

State Jurisdictional Residue: What Remains to a State Court When Its Chapter III Functions are Exhausted?

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Helen Irving
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
State Power ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The State ◽  
Judicial Power ◽  
State Court ◽  
High Court ◽  
Federal Jurisdiction ◽  
High Court Of Australia ◽  
Court Of Appeal

Momcilovic v The Queen (2011) 245 CLR 1 provided the first opportunity for the High Court of Australia to consider the constitutional validity of a ‘declaration of inconsistent interpretation’ made under s 36 of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic). The Court's ruling on this point attracted attention going well beyond the rest of the case. The constitutional status of the Charter's ‘declaration’ function had long been uncertain; in addition, although the case concerned a conviction under State law, the judgment of the Victorian Court of Appeal, from which Ms Momcilovic's appeal had come to the High Court, had been exercised in federal jurisdiction. This, then, raised questions about the extent to which the State Court was jurisdictionally limited, under the Kable doctrine, by its ‘identity’ as a Ch III court: whether the declaration power could be exercised by both, either, or neither, a State or federal court. Notably, French CJ found the power valid for a State court, but invalid for a federal court. In explaining his conclusion, the Chief Justice identified what this paper calls ‘State jurisdictional residue.’ In his Honour's words, ‘there is no reason in principle why the Court of Appeal, having exhausted its functions in the exercise of its federal jurisdiction … could not proceed to exercise the distinct non-judicial power conferred upon it by’ the Charter. Further questions were then raised about the extent to which a State court, albeit exercising federal jurisdiction, remains free to exercise a ‘residual’ State power relevant to the same proceedings. This paper considers such questions. It also asks what the case might be for reconsidering Kable v Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) (1996) 189 CLR 51, particularly in light of the more recent judgment in Kirk v Industrial Court (NSW) (2010) 239 CLR 531.

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