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CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE FEDERAL JUDICIAL SYSTEM
I. Introduction
Although federal court interpreting occurs almost exclusively at the district court level, the following information regarding the court system will help interpreters develop an overall view of the court structure. The limited information presented in this chapter and in this manual should be considered only a primer towards a more comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter.
The following material is reproduced verbatim from the Federal Judicial Center brochure, Welcome to the Federal Courts.
II. Federal and State Courts
There are two kinds of courts in the United States.
A. Federal
Federal courts are established by the U.S. government. There are some 1,500 federal judges and about one million cases are brought each year in federal courts. Nearly 80% of these cases are bankruptcy filings and approximately 10% are minor criminal cases.
B. State
State courts are established by a state, or by a county or city within the state. There are almost 30,000 state court judges, and the number of state court cases exceeds 27 million each year, not including traffic and parking violations. The cases individual citizens are most likely to be involved in—such as robberies, traffic violations, broken contracts, and family disputes—usually come before state courts.
III. Types of Federal Courts
Article III of the Constitution calls for a Supreme Court and whatever other federal courts Congress considers necessary. There are three types of federal courts.
A. District Courts
Congress has divided the country into 94 federal judicial districts, each with its own U.S. District Court. The district courts are the federal courts where cases are tried, witnesses testify and juries serve. Each district court has a separate bankruptcy court.
B. Courts of Appeals
Congress has grouped the districts into 12 regions, called circuits, each with a court of appeals. There is also a federal circuit, which covers the entire country. If a person loses a trial in a district court, that person can appeal the case to the court of appeals, which will review the case to see if the district court judge applied the law correctly. The courts of appeals also review cases decided by some federal agencies, such as the National Labor Relations Board.
C. The Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., is the most famous federal court.
Cases from the court of appeals in each circuit and from the state supreme courts can be appealed to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court does not have to hear the cases it is asked to review and, in fact, agrees to hear only a very small percentage of them.
IV. Federal Court Cases
A. Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction refers to the kinds of cases a court is authorized to hear. Federal courts don’t have the same broad jurisdiction that state courts have. Federal court jurisdiction is limited to the kinds of cases listed in the Constitution (Article III, Section 2). Usually, federal courts only hear cases involving the Constitution, laws passed by Congress, cases in which the United States is a party, cases involving foreign diplomats, and some special kinds of cases, such as incidents at sea and bankruptcy cases. Federal courts also hear cases that are based on
state laws but that involve parties from different states.
B. Civil Cases
Lawyers use the term “party” to describe a participant in a civil case. A party can be a person or a corporation, but, in either situation, a civil case involves a claim by one party (the plaintiff) that another party (the defendant) failed to carry out a legal duty, such as the duty not to harm others through carelessness or the duty to honor the terms of a contract. If a court finds that a defendant failed to carry out a legal duty, it may order the defendant to pay compensation to the plaintiff to make up for the harm. Most federal court cases are civil cases, such as equal mployment opportunity claims, claims for benefits under federal programs, and suits against companies that may have violated federal antitrust laws. Appeals to the courts of appeals for review of federal agency decisions are also federal civil cases.
C. Criminal Cases
In a criminal case, a party (the defendant) is accused of committing a crime—an action considered to be harmful to society as a whole, not just to a specific person. Most crimes concern matters that the Constitution leaves to the states, and thus, compared with the number of state criminal laws and cases, there are few federal criminal laws and cases.
Federal criminal laws, for example, deal with robbing banks whose deposits are insured by a federal agency, importing drugs illegally into the country, or using the U.S. mails to swindle consumers.
V. Bringing a Case in Federal Court
For a court to decide a controversy, a person must bring it to court. Also, the controversy must involve a legal question— courts don’t resolve every type of disagreement.
A. Civil Cases
A federal civil case begins when someone, or someone’s lawyer, files a paper with the clerk of the court that states a claim against another party, charging a failure to fulfill a legal duty. In lawyers’ language, the plaintiff files a complaint against the defendant. The defendant may then file an answer to the complaint.
B. Criminal Cases
A criminal case begins when the U.S. attorney (a lawyer for the executive branch of government) or an assistant tells a federal grand jury about evidence that indicates a specific person or organization committed a crime. If the grand jury agrees that there is enough evidence to show that the accused party probably committed the crime, it issues a formal accusation, called an indictment. The accused party— the defendant—is then brought before a judge for arraignment and is asked to plead “guilty” or “not guilty.” If the defendant pleads guilty, a time is set for sentencing. If the defendant pleads not guilty, a time is set for trial.
Grand jury indictments are used mainly for felonies, the more serious crimes. For
misdemeanors, the less serious crimes, and for some felonies, the U.S. attorney issues an information, which takes the place of an indictment.
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