Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Supreme Court of the United States is the only court specifically established by the Constitution of the United States, implemented in 1789; under the Judiciary Act of 1789, the Court was to be composed of six members—though the number of justices has been nine for most of its history, this number is set by Congress, not the Constitution ...
The size of the court was first altered by the Midnight Judges Act of 1801 which would have reduced the size of the court to five members upon its next vacancy (as federal judges have life tenure), but the Judiciary Act of 1802 promptly negated the 1801 act, restoring the court's size to six members before any such vacancy occurred.
The longest vacancy during this time frame, and the longest since the Supreme Court was expanded to nine members in 1869, was the 422-day vacancy between the death of Antonin Scalia on February 13, 2016, and the swearing-in of Neil Gorsuch on April 10, 2017. [107] Overall, it was the eighth-longest vacancy period in U.S. Supreme Court history.
Madison, [20] one of the seminal cases in American law, the Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional because it purported to enlarge the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court beyond that permitted by the Constitution. The case was the first that clearly established that the judiciary can and must interpret what the Constitution ...
The circuit court could be held by the circuit judge, the Supreme Court justice, or the two could hold the court together, in which case the Supreme Court justice would preside. Up until this time, circuit courts were normally only staffed by district judges and Supreme Court justices "riding circuit".
The Supreme Court of the United States is the country's highest federal court.The Court has ultimate—and largely discretionary—appellate jurisdiction over all federal courts and state court cases involving issues of U.S. federal law, plus original jurisdiction over a small range of cases.
Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the electoral districts of state legislative chambers must be roughly equal in population. Along with Baker v. Carr (1962) and Wesberry v.
Cases that fall within the Court's original jurisdiction are initiated by filing a complaint directly with the Supreme Court, and normally are assigned to a special master appointed by the Court for the taking of evidence and making recommendations, after which the Court may accept briefs and hear oral arguments as in an appellate case.