Thefederal judiciary of the United States is one of the three branches of the U.S. federal government organized under theU.S. Constitution andlaws of the federal government. The U.S. federal judiciary does not include anystate court (which includes local courts), which are completely independent from the federal government. The U.S. federal judiciary consists primarily of theU.S. Supreme Court, theU.S. Courts of Appeals, and theU.S. District Courts.[1] It also includes a variety of other lesser federal tribunals.
Article III of the Constitution requires the establishment of a Supreme Court and permits the Congress to create other federal courts and place limitations on theirjurisdiction. Article III states thatfederal judges are appointed by thepresident with the consent of theSenate to serve until they resign, are impeached and convicted, or die.[2]
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All federal courts can be readily identified by the words "United States" (abbreviated to "U.S.") in their official names; nostate court may include this designation as part of its name.[3] The federal courts are generally divided between trial courts, which hear cases in the first instance, and appellate courts, which review contested decisions made by lower courts.
TheSupreme Court of the United States is thecourt of last resort.[1] It generally hears appeals from the courts of appeals (and sometimes state courts), operating underdiscretionary review, which means that the Supreme Court can choose which cases to hear, by granting petitions for writs ofcertiorari.[1] There is therefore generally no basic right of appeal that extends automatically all the way to the Supreme Court.[1] In a few situations (like lawsuits between state governments or some cases between the federal government and a state) it sits as a court of original jurisdiction.[citation needed]
Less than 1% of petitions for certiorari to the Supreme Court are granted for review; the vast majority of the remaining cases are either ignored or denied, effectively making decisions from lower courts final.
TheUnited States courts of appeals are the intermediate federal appellate courts.[1] They operate under a system of mandatory review which means theymust hear all appeals of right from the lower courts. In some cases, Congress has diverted appellate jurisdiction to specialized courts, such as theForeign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.[4]
The U.S. Courts of Appeals are divided into 13 circuits: 12 regional circuits, numberedFirst throughEleventh; theDistrict of Columbia Circuit; and a 13th circuit, theFederal Circuit, which has special jurisdiction over appeals involving specialized subjects such aspatents andtrademarks. Nearly all appeals are heard by three-judge panels,[1] but on rare occasions, after a three-judge panel decides a case, all the judges in the circuit may rehear the caseen banc.[5] Decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals can be appealed to the Supreme Court, but the Court of Appeals is the "end of the line" for most federal cases.[1]
Although several other federal courts bear the phrase "Court of Appeals" in their names—such as theU.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims—they are notArticle III courts and are not considered to sit in appellate circuits.[citation needed]
TheUnited States district courts are the general federal trial courts. There are 94 U.S. District Courts, one for each of the 94federal judicial districts.[1] The U.S. District Courts and federal judicial districts are organized according to U.S. state boundaries. Depending on a state's population, it may be covered by only a single district court, such as theU.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, or by up to four district courts, such as the U.S. District Courts for theNorthern,Eastern,Western, andSouthern Districts of New York. Most cases "are tried by a single judge, sitting alone".[1]
In certain cases, Congress has diverted original jurisdiction to specialized courts, such as theCourt of International Trade, theForeign Intelligence Surveillance Court, theAlien Terrorist Removal Court, or toArticle I orArticle IV tribunals. The district courts usually have jurisdiction to hear appeals from such tribunals (unless, for example, appeals are to theCourt of Appeals for the Federal Circuit).[citation needed]
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Besides these federal courts, described as Article III courts, there are other adjudicative bodies described as Article I or Article IV courts in reference to the article of the Constitution from which the court's authority stems.
There are a number of Article I courts with appellate jurisdiction over specific subject matter including theCourt of Appeals for Veterans Claims and theCourt of Appeals for the Armed Forces, as well as Article I courts with appellate jurisdiction over specific geographic areas such as theDistrict of Columbia Court of Appeals. The Article I courts with original jurisdiction over specific subject matter include thebankruptcy courts (for each district court), theCourt of Federal Claims, and theTax Court.
Article IV courts include theHigh Court of American Samoa andterritorial courts such as theDistrict Court for the Northern Mariana Islands,District Court of Guam, andDistrict Court of the Virgin Islands. TheUnited States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico was transformed from an Article IV court to an Article III court in 1966, and reform advocates[who?] say the other territorial courts should be changed as well.
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Federal judges, like Supreme Court justices, are appointed by thepresident with the consent of theSenate to serve until they resign, are impeached and convicted, retire, or die.
UnderArticle I of the federal Constitution, Congress also has the power to establish other tribunals, which are usually quite specialized, within the executive branch to assist the president in the execution of his or her powers. Judges who staff them normally serve terms of fixed duration, as domagistrate judges. Judges in Article I tribunals attached to executive branch agencies are referred to asadministrative law judges (ALJs) and are generally considered to be part of the executive branch even though they exercise quasi-judicial powers. With limited exceptions, they cannot render final judgments in cases involving life, liberty, and private property rights, but may make preliminary rulings subject to review by an Article III judge.
The 30,000 people who work for the judiciary have unusually low workplace protections.[6] Victims of workplace harassment at the judiciary and their advocates have called for more transparency and accountability, proposing an independent body overseeing working conditions within the judicial system.[6] This extends to the incomplete disclosure of gifts, including luxury trips, for judges throughout the judiciary, which hampers the ability of the public to know whether there are enoughconflicts of interest to warrant arecusal.[7]
Suja A. Thomas argues the federal judiciary has taken most of the constitutionally defined power fromjuries in the United States for itself[8] thanks in part to the influence of legal elites and companies that prefer judges over juries[9] as well as the inability of the jury to defend its power.[10]
Americans have a historic distrust of the courts, according to David Daley, the author ofRatf**ked. Based on a 2024 Gallup poll, only 35 percent of Americans have faith in the courts.[11]
The Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution as placing some additional restrictions on the federal courts. For example, the doctrines ofmootness,ripeness, andstanding prohibit district courts from issuingadvisory opinions. Other doctrines, such as theabstention doctrine and theRooker–Feldman doctrine limit the power of lower federal courts to disturb rulings made bystate courts. TheErie doctrine requires federal courts to apply substantive state law to claims arising from state law (which may be heard in federal courts under supplemental or diversity jurisdiction). In difficult cases, the federal courts must either guess as to how a court of that state would decide the issue or, if that state acceptscertified questions from federal courts when state law is unclear or uncertain, ask an appellate court of that state to decide the issue.[citation needed]
Notably, the only federal court that can issue proclamations of federal law that bind state courts is the Supreme Court itself. Decisions of the lower federal courts, whether on issues of federal law or state law (when the question was not certified to a state court), are persuasive but not binding authority in the states in which those federal courts sit.[12]
Some commentators assert that another limitation upon federal courts is executivenonacquiescence in judicial decisions, where the executive simply refuses to accept them asbinding precedent.[13][14] In the context of administration of U.S. internal revenue laws by the Internal Revenue Service, nonacquiescences (published in a series of documents called Actions on Decisions) "generally do not affect the application of stare decisis or the rule ofprecedent". The IRS "will recognize these principles and generally concede issues accordingly during administrative proceedings". In rare cases, however, the IRS may continue to litigate a legal issue in a given circuit even where the IRS has already lost a case on that issue in that circuit.[15]
TheArticles of Confederation provided a clear basis for the initial establishment of United States of America judicial authority by Congress prior to the Constitution. This authority, enumerated by Article IX, allowed for the establishment of United States jurisdiction in the trial ofpiracies and felonies committed on the high seas, final appeals from state court decisions in all cases ofcaptures of enemy ships, last resort for resolution of disputes between two or more states (including disputes over borders and jurisdiction), and final determination of controversies between private parties arising from conflicting land grants issued by two or more states prior to settlement of which state actually has jurisdiction over the territory. TheCourt of Appeals in Cases of Capture was the first United States court established by the United States. Additional United States courts were established to adjudicate border disputes between the states ofConnecticut andPennsylvania,New York andMassachusetts,Georgia andSouth Carolina. A United States court was also established for theNorthwest Territory.[citation needed]
When the Constitutioncame into force in 1789, Congress gained the authority to establish the federal judicial system as a whole. Only the Supreme Court was established by the Constitution itself. TheJudiciary Act of 1789 created the first inferior (i.e., lower) federal courts established pursuant to the Constitution and provided for the first Article III judges.[citation needed]
Virtually all U.S.law schools offer an elective course that focuses specifically on the powers and limitations of U.S. federal courts, with coverage of topics such asjusticiability,abstention doctrines, theabrogation doctrine, andhabeas corpus.[16]
The Supreme Court's differing treatment of the traditional actors and the jury and the deference to traditional actors has contributed to the jury's decline…The Court has failed to acknowledge any specific authority in the jury or any necessity to guard that authority...Moreover it has ultimately held constitutional almost every modern procedure before and after the a jury deliberation that has eliminated or reduced jury authority. (75-77)
as the jury continued to be more diverse in gender and race, the jury was less desirable to judges and corporations…this shift has occurred, particularly in the 1930s…The Supreme Court likely has been influenced by legal elites as well as by corporations to reduce jury authority over time.
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