Category: Judicial Department
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Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction Federal Court Jurisdiction The constitutional courts hear most of the cases tried in the federal courts. That is, those courts have jurisdiction over most federal cases. Jurisdiction is defined as the authority of a court to hear (to try and to decide) a case. The term means, literally, the power “to say the law.”…
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Article III
Article III: The Judicial Branch Article III is the shortest, and least specific, of the constitutional provisions establishing the three branches of government. The framers of the Constitution spent far less time-and debate-on the judiciary than Congress or the president. Yet the power of unelected judges to overturn laws in a democracy has become one…
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Judicial Review
The Establishment of Judicial ReviewJudicial review is one of the distinctive features of United States constitutional law. It is no small wonder, then, to find that the power of the federal courts to test federal and state legislative enactments and other actions by the standards of what the Consti…
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Jury Trial
Trial By JuryThe Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law…
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Burr Trial
The Burr TrialNot long afterward, the Chief Justice went to Richmond to preside over the trial of Aaron Burr. His ruling 1 denying a motion to introduce certain collateral evidence bearing on Burr's activities is significant both for rendering th…
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Cramer Case
The Cramer CaseSince Bollman, the few treason cases that have reached the Supreme Court were outgrowths of World War II and have charged adherence to enemies of the United States and the giving of aid and comfort. In the first of these, Cramer v. United States,<a name=t1 href=#f1 target="_self&…
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Haupt Case
The Haupt CaseThe Supreme Court sustained a conviction of treason, for the first time in its history, in 1947 in Haupt v. United States.1 Here it was held that although the overt acts relied upon to support the charge of treason-defendant's harbo…
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Kawakita Case
The Kawakita CaseKawakita v. United States 1 was decided on June 2, 1952. The facts are sufficiently stated in the following headnote: "At petitioner's trial for treason, it appeared that originally he was a native-born citizen of the United…
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Treason Punishment
Treason PunishmentThe Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.Treason Punishment and the U.S. ConstitutionResourcesSee AlsoReferences…
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Corruption of the Blood
Corruption of the Blood and ForfeitureThe Confiscation Act of 1862 "to suppress Insurrection, to punish Treason and Rebellion, to seize and confiscate the Property of Rebels" 1 raised issues under Article III, § 3, cl. 2. Because of th…
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Treason
TreasonThe Treason Clause is a product of the awareness of the Framers of the "numerous and dangerous excrescences" which had disfigured the English law of treason and was therefore intended to put it beyond the power of Congress to "extend the crime and punishment of treason." <…
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Levying War
Levying WarEarly judicial interpretation of the meaning of treason in terms of levying war was conditioned by the partisan struggles of the early nineteenth century, which involved the treason trials of Aaron Burr and his associates. In Ex parte Bollman,1…
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Immunity of the United States
Immunity of the United States From SuitPursuant to the general rule that a sovereign cannot be sued in its own courts, the judicial power does not extend to suits against the United States unless Congress by statute consents to such suits. This rule first emanated in embryonic form in an obiter dict…
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Diversity Cases
The Law Applied in Diversity CasesBy virtue of § 34 of the Judiciary Act of 1789,1 state law expressed in constitutional and statutory form was regularly applied in federal courts in diversity actions to govern the disposition of such cases. But…
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Enforcement of Federal Law
Use of State Courts in Enforcement of Federal LawAlthough the states' rights proponents in the Convention and in the First Congress wished to leave to the state courts the enforcement of federal law and rights rather than to create inferior federal courts,<a name=t1 href=#f1 target="_self&q…