Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
Characteristics and Attributes of Judicial Power
"JUDICIAL POWER"
Judicial power, as Justice Miller defined it in 1891, is the power "of a court to decide and pronounce a judgment and carry it into effect between persons and parties who bring a case before it for decision";[1] or in the words of the Court in Muskrat v. United States,[2] it is "the right to determine actual controversies arising between adverse litigants, duly instituted in courts of proper jurisdiction."[3] Although the terms "judicial power" and "jurisdiction" are frequently used interchangeably and jurisdiction is defined as the power to hear and determine the subject matter in controversy between parties to a suit,[4] or as the "power to entertain the suit, consider the merits and render a binding decision thereon,"[5] the cases and commentaries support and, for that matter, necessitate a distinction between the two concepts. Jurisdiction is the authority of a court to exercise judicial power in a specific case and is, of course, a prerequisite to the exercise of judicial power, which is the totality of powers a court exercises when it assumes jurisdiction and hears and decides a case.[6] Included with the general power to decide cases are the ancillary powers of courts to punish for contempts of their authority,[7] to issue writs in aid of jurisdiction when authorized by statute;[8] to make rules governing their process in the absence of statutory authorizations or prohibitions;[9] inherent equitable powers over their own process to prevent abuse, oppression and injustice, and to protect their own jurisdiction and officers in the protection of property in custody of law;[10] the power to appoint masters in chancery, referees, auditors, and other investigators;[11] and to admit and disbar attorneys.[12]
"SHALL BE VESTED"
The distinction between judicial power and jurisdiction is especially pertinent to the meaning of the words "shall be vested." Whereas all of the judicial power of the United States is vested in the Supreme Court and the lower federal judiciary, neither has ever been vested with all the jurisdiction they are capable of receiving under article III. Except for the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which flows directly from the Constitution,[13] two prerequisites to jurisdiction must be present. First, the Constitution must have given the courts the capacity to receive it; second, an act of Congress must have conferred it.[14]
FINALITY OF JUDGMENT
Since 1792 the federal courts have emphasized finality of judgment as an essential attribute of judicial power. In Hayburn's Case[15] a motion for mandamus was filed in the Supreme Court to direct the Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania to act upon a petition for a pension under the pensions act which placed the administration of pensions in the judges of the federal courts, but which made the action of the courts on application subject to review by Congress and the Secretary of War. The Court took the case under advisement, but Congress changed the law by the act of February 28, 1793, before decision was rendered. In view of the attitude of the circuit courts of the United States for the districts of New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania there can be no doubt what the decision would have been. The judges of the circuit courts in each of these districts refused to administer the pensions, because the revisory powers of Congress and the Secretary of War were regarded as making the administration of the law nonjudicial in nature. At the time of this episode, Chief Justice Jay and Justice Cushing were members of the Circuit Court in the New York district, Justices Wilson and Blair in Pennsylvania and Justice Iredell in North Carolina.
The Taney Doctrine
On these foundations Chief Justice Taney posthumously erected finality into a judicial absolute.[16] The original act creating the Court of Claims provided for an analogous procedure with appeals to the Supreme Court after which judgments in favor of claimants were to be referred to the Secretary of the Treasury for payments out of the general appropriation for the payment of private claims. However, section 14 of the act provided that no money should be paid out of the Treasury for any claims "till after an appropriation therefor shall be estimated by the Secretary of the Treasury." In Gordon v. United States,[17] the Court refused to hear an appeal, probably for the reasons given in Chief Justice Taney's opinion which he did not deliver because of his death before the Court reconvened but which was published many year later.[18] In any event the reiteration of Taney's opinion in subsequent cases made much of it good law. Because the judgment of the Court of Claims and the Supreme Court depended for execution upon future action of the Secretary of the Treasury and of Congress, the Chief Justice regarded it as nothing more than a certificate of opinion and in no sense a judicial judgment. Congress, therefore, could not authorize the Supreme Court to take appeals from an auditor or require it to express an opinion in a case where its judicial power could not be exercised, where its judgment would not be final and conclusive upon the parties, and where processes of execution were not awarded to carry it into effect. The Chief Justice then proceeded to formulate a rule, repeated in many subsequent cases until modified in 1927 and reversed in 1933, to the effect that the award of execution is a part and an essential part of every judgment passed by a court exercising judicial powers; it was no judgment in the legal sense of the term without it.[19] This rule was given rigid application in Liberty Warehouse Co. v. Grannis,[20] where the Supreme Court sustained a district court in refusing to entertain a declaratory proceeding for lack of jurisdiction because such a proceeding was regarded as nonjudicial. One year later, the Court applied the extreme of the rule in Liberty Warehouse v. Burley Tobacco Growers Association,[21] when it ruled that it could exercise no appellate jurisdiction in a declaratory proceeding in a State court.