Judicial Power

Question 1

Establishment of the Supreme Court

Answer 1

Article III requires the establishment of a Supreme Court and permits the Congress to create other federal courts and place limitations on their jurisdiction. Although many specialized courts are created under the authority granted in Article I, greater power is vested in ArticleIII courts because they are independent of Congress, the President, and the political process.

Question 2

Jurisdiction of federal courts

Answer 2

Article III, Section 2 delineates the jurisdiction of federal courts as limited to cases or controversies:

i) Arising under the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States;
ii) Affecting foreign countries’ ambassadors, public ministers, and consuls;
iii) Involving admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;
iv) When the United States is a party;
v) Between two or more states, or between a state and citizens of another state;
vi) Between citizens of different states or between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states; or
vii) Between a state, or its citizens, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects.

Question 3

Judicial review of congressional and executive actions

Answer 3

The judiciary has the power—although it is not enumerated in the text of the Constitution—to review an act of another branch of the federal government and to declare that act unconstitutional, Marbury v. Madison, as well as the constitutionality of a decision by a state’s highest court.

Question 4

Marbury v. Madison

Answer 4

The central ideas of Marbury v. Madison are that (i) the Constitution is paramount law, and (ii) the Supreme Court has the final say in interpreting the Constitution.

Question 5

Judicial review of state actions

Answer 5

The federal judiciary has the power, under the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Section 2), to review state actions (e.g., court decisions, state statutes, executive orders) to ensure conformity with the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States.

Question 6

Eleventh Amendment

Answer 6

The Eleventh Amendment is a jurisdictional bar that prohibits the citizens of one state from suing another state in federal court. It immunizes the state from suits in federal court for money damages or equitable relief when the state is a defendant in an action brought by a citizen of another state or a foreign country. In addition, the Eleventh Amendment bars suits in federal court against state officials for violating state law. It also preclude citizens from suing their own state in federal court

Question 7

Sovereign Immunity

Answer 7

Note that the Supreme Court has also barred federal-law actions brought against a state government without the state’s consent in its own courts as a violation of sovereign immunity.

However, neither the Eleventh Amendment nor the sovereign immunity doctrine bars a suit brought by a citizen against a state in the courts of another state.

Question 8

Injunctive relief when defendant in an action is a state official

Answer 8

When a state official, rather than the state itself, is named as the defendant in an action brought in federal court, the state official may be enjoined from enforcing a state law that violates federal law or may be compelled to act in accord with federal law despite state law to the contrary.

Question 9

Damages to be paid by an individual not in their representative capacity

Answer 9

An action for damages against a state officer is not prohibited, as long as the officer himself (rather than the state treasury) will have to pay. Such is the case when an officer acts outside the law; the action is against the officer as an individual and not in his representative capacity.

Question 10

Actions against local governments

Answer 10

The Eleventh Amendment applies only to states and state agencies. Local governments (e.g., counties, cities) are not immune from suit.

Question 11

Bankruptcy proceedings

Answer 11

The Eleventh Amendment does not bar the actions of a Bankruptcy Court that impacts state finances.

Question 12

Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court

Answer 12

Article III, Section 2 gives the Supreme Court “original jurisdiction” (i.e., the case may be filed first in the Supreme Court) over “all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls and those in which a State shall be a party.” Congress may not expand or limit this jurisdiction.
It may, however, grant concurrent original jurisdiction to lower federal courts, which it has for all cases except those between states.

Question 13

Appellate Jurisdiction

Answer 13

Article III, Section 2 also provides that “in all other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction…with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”

Question 14

Certiorari

Answer 14

Almost all cases now come to the Supreme Court by way of a petition for a writ of certiorari, i.e., discretionary review. The Court takes jurisdiction only if at least four Justices vote to accept the case (the “rule of four”).

Question 15

Direct Appeal

Answer 15

The Supreme Court must hear by direct appeal only a small number of cases—those that come from a decision on injunctive relief issued by a special three-judge district court panel. 28 U.S.C. § 1253. Although these panels (and appeals) were once fairly common, they are now limited to cases brought under a few specific statutes (e.g., the Voting Rights Act).

Question 16

Limitations on jurisdiction

Answer 16

Congress has some power to limit the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction by statute.
There are constraints on this power, because to deny all Supreme Court jurisdiction over certain types of cases would undermine the constitutional system of checks and balances.

Question 17

Adequate and independent state grounds

Answer 17

A final state-court judgment that rests on adequate and independent state grounds may not be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court (or it would be an advisory opinion). The state-law grounds must fully resolve the matter (i.e., be adequate) and must not incorporate a federal standard by reference (i.e., be independent).

Question 18

Matters that dictate whether a court hears the case

Answer 18

Standing, timing (mootness or ripeness), and other issues of justiciability may dictate whether a case may be heard by a federal court.

Question 19

Standing

Answer 19

Article III, Section 2 restricts federal judicial power to “cases” and “controversies.” A federal court cannot decide a case unless the plaintiff has standing—a concrete interest in the outcome—to bring it. Congress cannot statutorily eliminate the constitutional standing requirement simply by allowing citizen suits, but it can create new interests, the injury to which may establish standing.

Question 20

The plaintiff bears the burden of establishing standing

Answer 20

To have standing, a plaintiff bears the burden of establishing three elements:

i) Injury in fact;
ii) Causation (the injury must be caused by the defendant’s violation of a constitutional or other federal right); and
iii) Redressability (the relief requested must prevent or redress the injury).

Question 21

Injury in fact

Answer 21

The injury must be both concrete and particularized.

Question 22

Individualized injury

Answer 22

When a plaintiff has been directly injured “it does not matter how many people” were also injured; when “a harm is concrete, though widely shared,” there is standing.

However, even though an injury may satisfy the injury-in-fact standard, the court may refuse to adjudicate a claim by the application of the principles of prudence. Under this prudential-standing principle, an injury that is shared by all or a large class of citizens (i.e., a generalized grievance) is not sufficiently individualized to give the plaintiff standing.

Question 23

Type of injury

Answer 23

The injury need not be physical or economic.

While a generalized harm to the environment does not confer standing, a harm that affects recreational “or even mere esthetic interests,” that is sufficient.

Question 24

Future injury

Answer 24

While the threat of future injury can suffice, it cannot be merely hypothetical or conjectural, but must be actual and imminent. When a future injury is alleged, damages cannot be obtained, but an injunction can be sought.

Question 25

Causation

Answer 25

The plaintiff must show that the injury was fairly traceable to the challenged action—that is, that the defendant’s conduct caused the injury. Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490 (1975).

Question 26

Redressability

Answer 26

It must be likely (as opposed to speculative) that a favorable court decision will redress a discrete injury suffered by the plaintiff.

Question 27

Tax payer status

Answer 27

Usually, a taxpayer does not have standing to file a federal lawsuit simply because the taxpayer believes that the government has allocated funds in an improper way. However, a taxpayer does have standing to litigate whether, or how much, she owes on her tax bill.

Question 28

Taxpayer suit challenging a specific legislative appropriation

Answer 28

There is an exception for a taxpayer suit challenging a specific legislative appropriation made under the taxing and spending powers for violation of the Establishment Clause.

Question 29

When suit challenging an appropriation does not apply

Answer 29

This exception does not apply to:

The transfer of property to a religious organization by Congress under the Property Power,

To expenditures made by the President to religious organizations from monies appropriated by Congress to the President’s general discretionary fund, OR

To a tax credit for contributions to student tuition organizations that provide scholarships to students attending private schools, including religious schools

Question 30

Third-party standing

Answer 30

A litigant generally has no standing to bring a lawsuit based on legal claims of a third party. There are a few notable exceptions to this rule, however:

i) If the third parties would experience difficulty or are unable to assert their own rights, such as a Caucasian defendant raising equal protection and due process objections to discrimination against African-American people in the selection of grand juries, Campbell v. Louisiana, 523 U.S. 392 (1998);
ii) If there is a special relationship between the plaintiff and the third parties, such as an employer asserting the rights of its employees, a doctor asserting the rights of his patients in challenging an abortion ruling, Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106 (1976), or a private school asserting its students’ rights to attend despite a statute requiring attendance at public schools, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925); and
iii) If a plaintiff suffers an injury, and the injury adversely affects the plaintiff’s relationship with a third party, the plaintiff may assert the third-party’s rights. Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976).

Question 31

Organizational standing

Answer 31

An organization may bring an action when it has suffered an injury. In addition, an organization may bring an action on behalf of its members (even if the organization has not suffered an injury itself) if:

i) Its members would have standing to sue in their own right; and
ii) The interests at stake are germane to the organization’s purpose.

Question 32

Parental standing

Answer 32

Generally, a parent has standing to bring an action on behalf of the parent’s minor child. However, after a divorce, the right to bring such an action may be limited to only one of the child’s parents. Moreover, when the right to bring such an action is based on family-law rights that are in dispute, the federal courts should not entertain an action if prosecution of the lawsuit may have an adverse effect on the child.

Question 33

Standing to assert a Tenth Amendment violation

Answer 33

A party has standing to challenge the constitutionality of a federal statute on the grounds that it exceeds Congress’s enumerated powers and intrudes upon the powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment.

Question 34

Legislator’s standing

Answer 34

Generally, a legislator who voted against a bill does not have standing to challenge the resulting statute.

Question 35

Section 1983 claims

Answer 35

42 U.S.C. 1983 (“section 1983”) provides that any person acting under color of state law who deprives any citizen of the United States (or any other person within the United States) of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws can be held personally liable for the deprivation. Section 1983 does not provide any substantive rights. Instead, it provides a method to enforce the substantive rights granted by the Constitution and other federal laws.

Question 36

Proper defendants in a 1983 suit

Answer 36

Individual government employees at any level of government may be sued under section 1983 in their individual capacities for damages, declaratory or injunctive relief.

Question 37

Color of state law

Answer 37

To use section 1983 as a remedy for the deprivation of a federally secured right, a plaintiff must show that the alleged deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of state law. The traditional definition of acting under the color of state law requires the defendant to have exercised power “possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law.”

Question 38

Timeliness of a case

Answer 38

An action that is brought too soon (“unripe”) or too late (“moot”) will not be heard.

Question 39

Ripeness

Answer 39

“Ripeness” refers to the readiness of a case for litigation. A federal court will not consider a claim before it has fully developed; to do so would be premature, and any potential injury would be speculative.

For a case to be “ripe” for litigation, the plaintiff must have experienced a real injury (or imminent threat thereof). Hence, if an ambiguous law has a long history of non-enforcement, a case challenging that law may lack ripeness.

Question 40

Mootness

Answer 40

A case has become moot if further legal proceedings would have no effect; that is, if there is no longer a controversy. A live controversy must exist at each stage of review, not merely when the complaint is filed, in order for a case to be viable at that stage.

Question 41

Exception—capable of repetition, yet evading review

Answer 41

A case will not be dismissed as moot if there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be subjected to the same action again (“capable of repetition”) but that the action will not last long enough to work its way through the judicial system (“yet evading review”).

Question 42

Exception—voluntary cessation

Answer 42

A court will not dismiss as moot a case in which the defendant voluntarily ceases its illegal or wrongful action once litigation has commenced. The court must be assured that “there is no reasonable expectation that the wrong will be repeated.”

Question 43

Advisory Opinions

Answer 43

Federal courts may not render advisory opinions on the basis of an abstract or a hypothetical dispute. An actual case or controversy must exist.

Question 44

Declaratory Relief

Answer 44

The courts are not prohibited from issuing declaratory judgments, however, that determine the legal effect of proposed conduct without awarding damages or injunctive relief. The challenged action must pose a real and immediate danger to a party’s interests for there to be an actual dispute (as opposed to a hypothetical one)

Question 45

Political questions

Answer 45

A federal court will not rule on a matter in controversy if the matter is a political question to be resolved by one or both of the other two branches of government. .

A political question not subject to judicial review arises when:

i) The Constitution has assigned decision making on this subject to a different branch of the government; or
ii) The matter is inherently not one that the judiciary can decide.

Question 46

Pullman Doctrine

Answer 46

A court may refrain from ruling on a federal constitutional claim that depends on resolving an unsettled issue of state law best left to the state courts

Question 47

Younger abstention

Answer 47

A court will not enjoin a pending state criminal case in the absence of bad faith, harassment, or a patently invalid state statute.

Abstention also may be appropriate with regard to a civil enforcement proceeding or a civil proceeding involving an order uniquely in furtherance of the state courts’ ability to perform their judicial functions, such as a civil contempt order.