Global Student's
Introduction to the Law of the United
States.
I am Professor Pedro A Malavet of the
Levin College of Law.
Continuing my introduction in to the basic
structures of the US legal
system, I will speak about the legal
structure of our judicial system.
today, I will also talk about basic legal
process.
The Judicial Structure, the Court
Organization of the
United States is of course, Federal and
State.
And that will be my focus in this series.
In the next series, I will focus on
Legal Process Generally, particularly
Civil and Criminal Procedure.
As well as the Adversarial Oral Trial and
the Rules of Evidence.
My Recommended Readings are William
Burnham, Introduction to
the Law and Legal System of the United
States.
Which is in fact the text that I use for
my classes, and
the one that I used to prepare the
PowerPoints that you will be seeing.
Jay Feinman, Law 101, is a very fine,
text,
basic text that we expect to have
available to you.
And of course, the Library of Congress,
online, offers
great materials on the legal system of the
United States.
I teach, basically, an Introduction to the
US legal system, but it's
assigned for LLM students, and it takes a
year to teach it.
So obviously, our focused and extremely
compressed version of that.
You're welcome to visit my website to find
out more about those courses.
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To start today the judicial structure of
the United States is
of course a dual structure because we have
federal and state systems.
And it is important to understand that
these systems work concurrently.
There are federal courts and state courts
in every single state of the union.
And they are separate systems
with concurrent jurisdicition and
concurrent authority.
And so therefore, the federal and state
judicial systems
coexist in the same territory and are
totally parallel.
The Constitutional Supremacy Clause, about
which we talked last
time, requires that state court adjudicate
issues of federal law.
And in fact, most questions of federal
law, interestingly, are litigated in state
courts.
The federal courts also apply state law in
certain cases.
Mostly in diversity cases.
So you have these two systems applying,
technically, each others laws.
But, in fact, they are just simply the
laws of the United States federal system.
The concurrent authority, can be
illustrated like this.
You have spheres of authority.
Most legal authority of the United States
is shared.
That's why the term concurrent is the term
that is appropriate.
Some of course, are reserved to the
federal government and to the states
exclusively.
So there are areas of exclusivity, but
they are not the majority of the areas.
Which is why the two legal systems end up
applying each other's laws all the time.
The concurrency creates a choice.
The plaintiff, the person who files a
lawsuit, a civil lawsuit, chooses where to
file.
Of course, prosecutors are only permitted
to file in the
state, in the system that gives them
authority; federal or state.
But a plaintiff, a civil litigant is a
private person and
they are given the choice of filing in
Federal or State court.
And removal is given to the defendants
meaning the plaintiff gets an initial
choice.
And if they choose to file in the
federal court, in the state court system,
pardon me.
The defendant then has the choice of
removing the case to
the federal system, if the federal court
would have had original jurisdiction.
The law that is applied by the state and
the federal courts.
The US courts of course follow federal
procedure and state substantive law in
certain cases.
And the US courts are generally bound by
state interpretation of that state law.
And that is mostly in cases of
diversity jurisdiction, about which we
will talk later.
The state courts follow state procedural
rules and federal substance.
In the absence of conflict because in fact
the federal substance
may require that the state procedure be
trumped under certain circumstances.
But the general rule is that they follow
their own rules of procedure and federal
substance.
When they are applying federal law under
the supremacy clause.
This distinction between substance and
procedure, it is something on which
I spend quite a bit of time, because I am
a proceduralist.
I teach civil procedure, I teach evidence,
and therefore the
question of what is the line that
separates procedure and substance.
Substances often raised in my classes.
Substantive law to give you the basic
definition
defines the legal rights and duties in
everyday conduct.
Procedure on the other hand is the rules
for
enforcing substantive rights and the
distinction isn't always easy.
But to give you a basic illustration let's
say that you get into an accident.
That accident is caused by the fault of
someone else.
You have a substantive right which is
given most in legal
systems to recover damages for the
negligent conduct of that person.
But in order to collect if the person
doesn't wish to pay.
You have to file a civil action.
And the civil action will be governed by
rules of procedure.
So that the distinction between
substantive justice,
the substantive right to recover for your
injuries.
And the procedural justice, the way in
which you actually compel the person who
injured you to pay through judicial
process.
In terms of the exercise of jurisdiction
of the courts.
A major question that is often raised is
personal jurisdiction.
Personal jurisdiction means the authority
of a sovereign court to
order a particular person, legal or real,
to do something.
And generally speaking the rules are, that
the authority
of a particular court is limited to it's
territory.
Of course, the United States, is divided
into Terri, the territories of the states.
And also of course, we are one single
nation.
In fact, the territorial jurisdiction for
the states typically
will be limited to the geography of that
particular state.
However, it is possible to have
extra-territorial
jurisdiction based upon a concept called
minimum contacts.
The, which we will discuss later.
But basically, it means that someone can
have an
effect or a presence in a state, even if
temporary.
That would subject them to legal liability
in
that state, to the legal authority of that
state.
The other question that often comes up in
a system as large as ours, is conflict of
loss because we have at least 50 systems,
the 50 states.
We have an additional six territorial
systems
and their laws are not always the same.
So it is often, required that the court
decide which law
is to be applied, the, that of a
particular state or another.
The, another procedural limitation that is
imposed upon the courts is the case and
controversies requirement that is imposed
in Article III of our Constitution.
Article III of the Constitution limits the
federal judicial power
Meaning the Federal courts, to the
decision of cases or controversies.
What that means is that, in the United
States, the only
kind of judicial decision-making that the
Constitution abides, is concrete norm
control.
Meaning that the court may only decide
actual disputes not hypothetical ones.
Therefore, abstract decision making is
considered something that
is prohibited to the federal courts by
Article III.
And in addition to requiring an actual
dispute, actual parties involved in the
dispute.
Who are capable of litigating this in a,
an adversarial system are essential.
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This rule only applies to the Federal
courts.
It does not apply to the State court.
And so, the justiciability rule.
Meaning that you require a case or
controversy to exist
in order to issue a binding judicial
decision, is not followed.
By all the states some do, but many others
do not.
Which means that some of their courts are
allowed to
give so called advisory opinions on
important, usually on important questions.
Common law The Anglo-American system is
generally
referred to as a common law system.
What that means is that, courts have the
authority
to issue legally binding decisions that
are of general applicability.
It is considered and inherent judicial
power even for the Federal courts.
And so, therefore, there are many fields
of law in
the United States that are governed by
what we call caselaw.
Judicial decisions of general
applicability.
And, the areas that are governed
completely
by caselaw are considered the Common Law
Areas.
And that is distinguished from statutory
interpretation or case law interpreting
the Constitution.
Federal Common Law.
In general, there is no federal common law
in the criminal area.
The Supreme Court decided that very early
in our constitutional
history there cannot be crimes that are
defined by judicial decision.
They have to be defined by statute.
There is limited federal common law in
civil areas, in civil cases.
Usually this requires a uniquely federal
interest or some clear congressional
authority.
That allows the federal courts to
establish common law.
But there is, in fact, significant federal
case law in more, in multiple areas.
Another important aspect of the American
judicial system and how
it's affected by our dual federal nature
of having state and federal courts.
Is called the Erie Doctrine.
The Erie Doctrine on which I generally
spend several weeks in my civil procedure
class.
Basically establishes [SOUND] in 1938 that
federal courts handling
certain state claims must follow the state
common law.
And so, even though the federal courts
have authority to
create common law in areas of federal
jurisdiction of federal competence.
When they are applying the laws of the
several states, mostly diversity cases.
They are required to follow all of the
states laws including
the Common Law issued by the courts of
that particular state.
This is considered to be a Reserved State
Power.
One of those prerogatives that is reserved
for the
states and therefore the Federal courts
have to obey it.
Another important concept is the
Anti-Injunction Act.
What happens if two courts, one federal,
one state, are dealing with the same
controversy?
Can one enjoin the other.
The power of injunction is an inherent
power of American courts.
And under supremacy the federal courts
could enjoin
a state court in issues of federal law.
But, the Congress decided that it did not
like that, therefore it passed the
Anti-Injunction Act.
A statute passed in 1789 and still in
effect.
Which forbids the federal courts from
enjoining state courts
from ordering state courts to cease
considering a particular matter.
Injunctions are permitted by supremacy
therefore, by the
supremacy clause, or, and the supremacy of
federal law.
Therefore some exceptions do exist in
which courts issue
injunctions, but generally speaking they
are forbidden by the statute.
And there are occasions when the federal
courts voluntarily choose to defer to
state court.
And this is not required, therefore it's
called Abstention.
A voluntary decline of jurisdiction over
certain cases in deference to State
authority.
And, the reason for that is committee,
deference, avoidance
of undue interference by the federal court
in purely state legal matters.
Another important concept related to where
the federal system
and the state system's make comment to
conflict is state sovereign immunity.
Sovereign Immunity simply means that the
sovereign is
not subject to a lawsuit in a court.
In our system, it would mean that the
state governments would not be subject to
suit.
However, in Chisholm versus Georgia in
1791.
The Supreme Court found that Article III
of
the American Constitution, in fact,
abolished sovereign immunity.
The response from Congress was very quick.
They passed the eleventh Amendment
to the Constitution reestablishing
sovereign immunity.
And there are certain exceptions to allow
federal suits.
Usually involving misconduct by state
officers
particularly common is misconduct by
police.
But the general protection of sovereign
immunity is included in the eleventh
amendment.
This is also an example of what happens
when the Supreme
Court issues a constitutional ruling That
the Congress wishes to change.
It requires a constitutional amendment to
change a
constitutional ruling, and that's
precisely what you have here.
In terms of the judicial business of the
United States, our
federal and state court systems handle
vastly different volumes of cases.
In 2008, you have about 340,000 cases at
all levels of the Federal Article III
courts.
At the state level, by comparison you have
over 100 million cases, simply at the
trial level.
There are 29,000, in fact over 29,000
state court judges.
And there are fewer than 900 Article III
judges.
So the bulk of the judicial decision
making that takes place
in the United States, in fact, takes place
at the state level.
And that does include many resolutions of
federal question, federal law issues.
In conclusion, you have coexisting legal
systems
in the United States in every single
state.
You have a federal court and you have a
state court.
Both apply, generally speaking, their own
rules of procedure.
And both apply both federal and state
substantive
law, depending on the nature of the legal
claims.
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