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Court Systems

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When the founding fathers of the United States began to conceive the notion of how the nation's legal system should work, they were determined we should have a country that operated differently and more effectively than the one left behind in the days of British control. They decided that states should have the power to make and govern their own laws and also the ability to enforce those laws. This did not eliminate the need for federal court systems, however, and so the dual court system was born. The dual court system is the formal name for the way our country's legal system works. The dual courts it refers to are the federal and state court systems. The state court system is constructed of local and state courts that are under the …show more content…

Like the state court system, the federal court system also has its foundations in the United States Constitution and in colonial law. Specifically, Article III Section 2 of the United States Constitution gives the federal courts jurisdiction over federal laws and treaties (Schmalleger, 2009). In general, this means that federal courts have purview over cases that cross between states or have clear federal jurisdiction such as terrorism cases or cyber crime. In the federal court system, there is only one of the three tiers that is actually mandated by United States Constitution. This is the Supreme Court of the United States. It was formed in 1869 and has always had one Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices. As the name suggests, the Supreme Court is the final and "supreme" word on any case that it hears. The Supreme court rules on appeals and also has jurisdiction over certain proprietary cases like those involving high ranking diplomats of both the United States and other foreign nations (Supreme Court of The United States, 2011). The other two tiers of the federal court system are the federal district courts and the court of appeals. The kind of cases handled by the federal district courts are cases relating to alleged Constitutional violations, maritime cases, cases that directly involve a state, cases involving the federal government, and cases that include foreign governments or citizens. The

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