Federal Judicial Power

Question 1

Standing Requirements

Answer 1

Injury (or likely to be injured)
* Personally Suffered
* injunctive/Declaratory relief = likelihood of future harm

Causation & Redressability

No third-party standing; exceptions:
* Close relationship
* Unlikely to assert own rights
* No need for individual participation an organization may sue for its members, if (1) the members would have standing to sue; (2) the interests are germane to the organization’s purpose; (3) neither the claim nor relief requires participation of individual members
*

No generalized grievances:
Exception: taxpayers have standing to challenge government expenditures pursuant to federal (or state and local) statutes as violating the Establishment Clause
Examples:
—Taxpayer has standing to challenge federal law providing monetary aid to parochial schools
—Taxpayers do not have standing to challenge federal government grants of property to religious institutions
—Taxpayers do not have standing to challenge federal government expenditures from general executive revenues
—Taxpayers do not have standing to challenge state tax credits that benefit religious institutions

Question 2

Ripeness

Answer 2

Ripeness is the question of whether a federal court may grant pre-enforcement review of a statute or regulation.
* The hardship that will be suffered without pre-enforcement review
* The fitness of the issues and the record for judicial review

Pre-enforcement = Hardship & fitness of record

Question 3

Mootness

Answer 3

If events after the filing of a lawsuit end the plaintiff’s injury, the case must be dismissed as moot.
* Exception: wrong capable of repetition but evading review
* Exception: voluntary cessation. If the defendant voluntarily halts the offending conduct, but is free to resume it at any time, the case will not be dismissed as moot.
* Exception: class action suits. A class action will not be dismissed if the named plaintiff’s claim becomes moot so long as one member of the class has an ongoing injury.

Question 4

Policitcal Question Doctrine

Answer 4

The political question doctrine refers to constitutional violations that the federal courts will not adjudicate.
* The “republican form of government clause”
* Challenges to the President’s conduct of foreign policy
* Challenges to the impeachment and removal process
* Challenges to partisan gerrymandering

Question 5

Supreme Court Review

Answer 5

Virtually all cases come to the Supreme Court by writ of certiorari
* All cases from state courts come to the Supreme Court by writ of certiorari
* All cases from United States courts of appeals come to the Supreme Court by writ of certiorari
* Appeals exist for decisions of three-judge federal district courts
* The Supreme Court has original and exclusive jurisdiction for suits between state governments

Final Judgment Rule: Generally, the Supreme Court may hear cases only after there has been a final judgment of the highest state court, of a United States Court of Appeals, or of a three-judge federal district court.

For the Supreme Court to review a state court decision, there must not be an independent and adequate state law ground of decision. If a state court decision rests on two grounds, one state law and one federal law, if the Supreme Court’s reversal of the federal law ground will not change the result in the case, the Supreme Court cannot hear it.

Question 6

Lower Federal Court Review

Answer 6

Federal courts (and state courts) may not hear suits against state governments

The principle of sovereign immunity
* Congressional Authorization: The Eleventh Amendment bars suits against states in federal court
* Sovereign immunity bars suits against states in state courts or federal agencies

Exceptions. States may be sued under the following circumstances
* Waiver is permitted
* States may be sued pursuant to federal laws adopted under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Congress cannot authorize suits against states under other constitutional provisions.
* The federal government may sue state governments.
* Bankruptcy proceedings and suits pursuant to statutes adopted by Congress under its power to raise and army and a navy.

Suits against state officers are allowed
* state officers may be sued for injunctive relief
* state officers may be sued for money damages to be paid out of their own pockets
* state officers may not be sued if it is the state treasury that will be paying retroactive damages

Abstention. Federal courts may not enjoin pending state court proceedings