Constitutional US Law

Tag: Appellate Jurisdiction

  • Express Constitutional Restrictions on Congress

    Express Constitutional Restrictions on CongressCongress.-"[T]he Constitution is filled with provisions that grant Congress or the States specific power to legislate in certain areas; these granted powers are always subject to the limitations that they may not be exercised in a way that …

  • Federal Jurisdiction

    Duration of Federal Jurisdiction (Authority over Places Purchased)A state may qualify its cession of territory by a condition that jurisdiction shall be retained by the United States only so long as the place is used for specified purposes.1 Such a p…

  • Theory of Plenary Congressional Control Conclusion

    Conclusion of the Theory of Plenary Congressional ControThere thus remains a measure of doubt that Congress's power over the federal courts is as plenary as some of the Court's language suggests it is. Congress has a vast amount of discretion in conferring and withdrawing and structuring the…

  • Concurrency

    Problems Raised by ConcurrencyThe Constitution established a system of government in which total power, sovereignty, was not unequivocally lodged in one level of government. In Chief Justice Marshall's words, "our complex system [presents] the rare and difficult scheme of one genera…

  • Supreme Court Orders

    Noncompliance With and Disobedience of Supreme Court Orders by State CourtsThe United States Supreme Court when deciding cases on review from the state courts usually remands the case to the state court when it reverses for "proceedings not inconsistent" with the Court's opinion. This …

  • 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…

  • Rules of Accommodation

    Conflicts of Jurisdiction: Rules of AccommodationFederal courts primarily interfere with state courts in three ways: by enjoining proceedings in them, by issuing writs of habeas corpus to set aside convictions obtained in them, and by adjudicating cases removed from them. With regard to all three bu…

  • Comity

    ComityComity.-"[T]he notion of 'comity,' " Justice Black asserted, is composed of "a proper respect for state functions, a recognition of the fact that the entire country is made up of a Union of separate state governments, and a continuance of the belief that the Nati…

  • Abstention

    AbstentionPerhaps the fullest expression of the concept of comity may be found in the abstention doctrine. The abstention doctrine instructs federal courts to abstain from exercising jurisdiction if applicable state law, which would be dispositive of the controversy, is unclear and a state court int…