Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Federal jurisdiction refers to the legal scope of the government's powers in the United States of America.. The United States is a federal republic, governed by the U.S. Constitution, containing fifty states and a federal district which elect the President and Vice President, and having other territories and possessions in its national jurisdiction.
This statute provides that lower federal courts may also hear cases where the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, [1]: 19–20 with the exception of disputes between two or more states. When a case is between two or more states, the Supreme Court holds both original and exclusive jurisdiction, and no lower court may hear such cases.
Each state sets its own rules for the sale and importation of alcohol, including the drinking age. Because a federal law provides federal funds to states that prohibit the sale of alcohol to minors under the age of twenty-one, all fifty states have set their drinking age there. Rules about how alcohol is sold vary greatly from state to state. [158]
Conversely, a federal district court hearing a matter involving only a question of state law (usually through diversity jurisdiction) must apply the substantive law of the state in which the court sits, a result of the application of the Erie Doctrine; however, at the same time, the case is heard under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the ...
It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on questions of U.S. constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be ...
Section 2 also gives Congress the power to strip the Supreme Court of appellate jurisdiction, and establishes that all federal crimes must be tried before a jury. Section 2 does not expressly grant the federal judiciary the power of judicial review, but the courts have exercised this power since the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison.
Even after ratification, some opponents of a strong judiciary urged that the federal court system be limited to a Supreme Court and perhaps local admiralty judges. Congress, however, decided to establish a system of federal trial courts with broader jurisdiction, thereby creating an arm for enforcement of national laws within each state. [6]
Article III of the United States Constitution permits federal courts to hear such cases, so long as the United States Congress passes a statute to that effect. However, when Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, which authorized the newly created federal courts to hear such cases, it initially chose not to allow the lower federal courts to possess federal question jurisdiction for fear ...