Levels of Federal Courts and How Cases Work Through the System
The Federal Court system was set up by Article III of the United States Constitution. This set up the Judicial branch of the government with the job of determining guilt or innocence in criminal cases, and fault or not in civil cases when the parties or events took place in multiple states, in US territories that aren’t states, or when the issue at hand deals with possible violations of the United States Constitution. When the Federal Court system was first created there was only ONE court…The Supreme Court. The Constitution DID give the Congress the power to add any courts that it thought were necessary.
Eventually the Federal Court system would expand into what we have today: 94 District Courts, 13 Circuit Courts of Appeals, and one Supreme Court.
Why have we added so many extra courts today? ______
District Courts
District courts have original jurisdiction, which means that they preside over cases first. These cases may be either criminal or civil cases and may deal with anything from bankruptcy, trade, theft, kidnapping, drug trafficking, civil rights violations, personal injury, and lots more.
Currently, federal district courts hear over 300,000 cases a year.
Congress initially created one district court for each state, but over time as population grew and shifted, more were added.
Every state has at least one federal district, and some have as many as four.
The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands each have a district court.
Appeals Courts
More powerful than the District Courts are the Appeals Courts (also known as Circuit Courts). These courts are made up of three judges and they do exactly what you would think from the name. They hear appeals from cases at lower courts. If it is a civil case, either side (the plaintiff who brings the trial in the first place or the defendant who is accused) can appeal a verdict. If it is a criminal case, only the defendant can appeal to a higher court. You don’t automatically get to have your case heard by the Appeals Court. You have to show evidence that the lower court treated you unfairly in some way, and the Appeals Court can then either choose to listen to your appeal or not.
Appeals courts DO NOT listen to the entire case of evidence again. Both sides have the opportunity to give a written Briefexplaining why the lower court was either right or wrong. Sometimes the Appeals Court will then want to hear more information and each side will get to speak to the judges on the Appeals Court for about 10-15 minutes. Eventually the judges will determine if the person appealing was treated fairly or not. They will have three choices: Affirm, which means they agree with the lower court and nothing changes, Remand, which means they think the lower court made a mistake and the case must be sent back to the lower court and retried, or Reverse, which means the ruling of the lower court was wrong and is no longer valid. It takes 2 judges to remand or reverse a decision from a lower court.
Supreme Court
The highest court in the United States is the Supreme Court. It is made up of 9 judges who serve as long as they want to or until they die. Much like Appeals Courts, the Supreme Court only hears the cases that it wants to hear. Actually the Supreme Court functions exactly like the Appeals Courts in that lawyers send in briefs and the judges only actually listen to arguments from a few of the cases that are presented to them. The Supreme Court hears cases that have been appealed from the Appeals Courts. In Supreme Court Rulings the vote is a simple majority of the judges, so it only takes 5 judges to Reverse or Remand a ruling.
The difference in the Supreme Court and the Appeals Courts is that once the Supreme Court makes a decision, the case is over…period. No more appeals.