The American Judiciary

by Simeon E. Baldwin

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE COURTS OF THE UNITED STATES

The Constitution of the United States (Art. III) provides that there must always be one Supreme Court of the United States. The establishment of such inferior courts as may be deemed proper from time to time is left to Congress.

The judicial power of the United States is limited to cases of certain kinds or between certain kinds of parties. Either (1) the subject-matter of the action must be of a kind that concerns the whole nation, or (2) some party to it must be or claim under a political sovereign, or (3) it must be between a citizen of a State of the Union and one of another of the States or of a foreign country.

In a few of the second class the Supreme Court is given original jurisdiction: in all others of both classes it has appellate jurisdiction, with such exceptions as Congress may think fit to make, save only that no fact tried by a jury can be thus re-examined, except so far as the rules of the common law would have permitted. Its original jurisdiction is confined to cases affecting ambassadors, ministers, and consuls and those to which a State shall be a party. It is not necessarily exclusive as respects any of them,[Footnote: Ames v. Kansas, 111 U. S. Reports, 449, 469.] and by the eleventh amendment to the Constitution is so limited as not to include suits against a State by citizens of any other State or foreign government. In point of fact, few original suits have ever been brought before the court, and almost all of these have been instituted by or against States.

The Supreme Court is held at Washington. There is a Chief Justice with eight associate justices, and each is also assigned for circuit duty as a judge of the Circuit Court of the United States in one of nine judicial circuits into which the country is divided. Originally there were but six judges, and each was required to hold two circuits a year in each district in his circuit. They were assigned to the circuits in pairs, and both sat together with the District Judge. The consequence was that three-fourths of their time was spent in traveling from one court town to another. They complained of this to Congress through the President in 1792, and the next year it was provided that Circuit Courts might be held by one justice, alone or with the District Judge. In 1801, an ultimate reduction of the number to five was provided for. They were to devote their time entirely to the Supreme Court, while the Circuit Courts were to be held by a new set of eighteen Circuit Judges. In 1802, they had only ten cases pending before them, and the average for some years had not exceeded that number. For this and other reasons mentioned elsewhere the Act of 1801 was repealed by the next Congress. In 1807, another Justice of the Supreme Court was added and two more in 1837.

Each circuit has a judicial establishment of its own, and is composed of a certain number of judicial districts. Of these there are in the whole United States about eighty. The smaller States constitute one district. In the larger ones there are several.

Each district generally has its own judge, called the District Judge, and always its own court, called the District Court of that district. Each circuit has several Circuit Judges, whose main work is to sit in a court held in each circuit, styled the Circuit Court of Appeals. They can also hold a District Court.

Until 1911, the District Courts had a narrow jurisdiction, and there were Circuit Courts having a wider one. In 1911, the Circuit Court was abolished, and the District Court now is the general trial court of the United States in the first instance. Anyone can sue there to enforce a right arising under the laws of the United States when the amount in dispute is more than $3,000. Rights arising under certain of these laws can only be enforced there, and as to them the pecuniary limitation does not apply. Such are patent-rights and copyrights. Any suit involving an amount exceeding $3,000 may be brought there when the controversy is between citizens of different States or citizens of a State and citizens of a foreign country. So may a suit by citizens of the same State claiming land under grants from different States, without respect to the value of the subject of controversy. Suits of any of these kinds which are brought in a State court may, at the option of the defendant, be transferred for trial into the District Court. On filing proper papers the case is transferred automatically. The District Court has jurisdiction also over bankruptcy and admiralty matters, a few other kinds of civil cases of minor importance, and of all offenses against the United States.[Footnote: The Judicial Code of the United States, Chapter II.]

The pecuniary limit of jurisdiction was for a hundred years fixed at $500. The increase to $3,000 was due partly to the fact that the Supreme Court was overburdened by appeals from the trial courts, many of which involved small amounts, and more to a desire to keep judicial power over ordinary controversies between man and man, as far as practicable, in the hands of the State courts.

Early in the nineteenth century a practice began of bringing suits in the Circuit Court of the United States, which purported to be between citizens of different States, but in which the plaintiff had either changed his residence for the purpose of giving the court jurisdiction or was really suing for the benefit of a citizen of the same State with the defendant. This was due to the high opinion entertained of the federal judiciary[Footnote: Niles' Register, XXIX, 14.] and the desire to bring the cause before a federal, rather than a State tribunal. Such a mode of proceeding, while within the letter of the governing statute, was contrary to its spirit, and little better than a fraud. It was also an evident perversion of the intent of the Constitution, and became at last so far-spreading that both Congress and the courts used their best endeavors to put an end to it, and with success.[Footnote: U. S. Statutes at Large, XVIII, 470; Hawes v. Oakland, 104 U. S., 450, 459.]