CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
PHILLIP
FALL 2013
Chapter 1
The Federal Judicial Power
A. The Authority for Judicial Review
Marbury v. Madison
(1803)
Facts
On his last day in office, President John Adams named forty-two justices of the peace and sixteen new circuit court justices for the District of Columbia under the Organic Act. The Organic Act was an attempt by the Federalists to take control of the federal judiciary before Thomas Jefferson took office.
The commissions were signed by President Adams and sealed by acting Secretary of State John Marshall (who later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and author of this opinion), but they were not delivered before the expiration of Adams’s term as president. Thomas Jefferson refused to honor the commissions, claiming that they were invalid because they had not been delivered by the end of Adams’s term.
William Marbury (P) was an intended recipient of an appointment as justice of the peace. Marbury applied directly to the Supreme Court of the United States for a writ of mandamus to compel Jefferson’s Secretary of State, James Madison (D), to deliver the commissions. The Judiciary Act of 1789 had granted the Supreme Court original jurisdiction to issue writs of mandamus “…to any courts appointed, or persons holding office, under the authority of the United States.”
Issues
1. Does Marbury have a right to the commission?
2. Does the law grant Marbury a remedy?
3. Does the Supreme Court have the authority to review acts of Congress and determine whether they are unconstitutional and therefore void?
4. Can Congress expand the scope of the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction beyond what is specified in Article III of the Constitution?
5. Does the Supreme Court have original jurisdiction to issue writs of mandamus?
Holding and Rule (Marshall)
1. Yes. Marbury has a right to the commission.
The order granting the commission takes effect when the Executive’s constitutional power of appointment has been exercised, and the power has been exercised when the last act required from the person possessing the power has been performed. The grant of the commission to Marbury became effective when signed by President Adams.
2. Yes. The law grants Marbury a remedy. The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection.
Where a specific duty is assigned by law, and individual rights depend upon the performance of that duty, the individual who considers himself injured has a right to resort to the law for a remedy. The President, by signing the commission, appointed Marbury a justice of the peace in the District of Columbia. The seal of the United States, affixed thereto by the Secretary of State, is conclusive testimony of the verity of the signature, and of the completion of the appointment. Having this legal right to the office, he has a consequent right to the commission, a refusal to deliver which is a plain violation of that right for which the laws of the country afford him a remedy.
3. Yes. The Supreme Court has the authority to review acts of Congress and determine whether they are unconstitutional and therefore void.
It is emphatically the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must, of necessity, expound and interpret the rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the Court must decide on the operation of each. If courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.
4. No. Congress cannot expand the scope of the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction beyond what is specified in Article III of the Constitution.
The Constitution states that “the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction in all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be a party. In all other cases, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction.” If it had been intended to leave it in the discretion of the Legislature to apportion the judicial power between the Supreme and inferior courts according to the will of that body, this section is mere surplus age and is entirely without meaning. If Congress remains at liberty to give this court appellate jurisdiction where the Constitution has declared their jurisdiction shall be original, and original jurisdiction where the Constitution has declared it shall be appellate, the distribution of jurisdiction made in the Constitution, is form without substance.
5. No. The Supreme Court does not have original jurisdiction to issue writs of mandamus.
To enable this court then to issue a mandamus, it must be shown to be an exercise of appellate jurisdiction, or to be necessary to enable them to exercise appellate jurisdiction.
It is the essential criterion of appellate jurisdiction that it revises and corrects the proceedings in a cause already instituted, and does not create that case. Although, therefore, a mandamus may be directed to courts, yet to issue such a writ to an officer for the delivery of a paper is, in effect, the same as to sustain an original action for that paper, and is therefore a matter of original jurisdiction.
Disposition
Application for writ of mandamus denied. Marbury doesn’t get the commission.
See Ex Parte McCardle for a constitutional law case brief holding that that the Constitution gives Congress the express power to make exceptions to the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction.
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Notes on Marbury v. Madison
– Marbury v. Madison establishes a number of key propositions that continue to this day. First, it creates the authority for judicial review of executive actions.
– 2nd, Marbury establishes that Article 3 is the ceiling of federal court jurisdiction. The precise holding is that Congress cannot expand the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.
– 3rd, it establishes the authority for judicial review of legislative acts. This, of course, is what Marbury is most renowned for establishing.
– Marbury thus provides the foundation for American constitutional law by establishing the authority for judicial review of executive and legislative acts.
Authority for Judicial Review of State Judgments
– The authority for judicial review of state court decisions was established in 2 decisions early in the 19th century: Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee and Cohens v. Virginia.
Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee
(1816)
Facts
The state of Virginia enacted legislation during the Revolutionary War that gave the State the power to confiscate the property of British Loyalists. Hunter was given a grant of land by the State. Denny Martin held the land under devise from Lord Thomas Fairfax.
In an action in ejectment, the trial court found in favor of Martin and the court of appeals (the highest Virginia state court) reversed. The Supreme Court of the United States reversed in favor of Martin, holding that the treaty with England superseded the state statute, and remanded the case to the Virginia court of appeals to enter judgment for Martin. The Virginia court refused, asserting that the appellate power of the U.S. Supreme Court did not extend to judgments from the Virginia court of appeals.
Issue
Does the U.S. Supreme Court have appellate jurisdiction over state court decisions involving federal law?
Holding and Rule
Yes. The U.S. Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction over state court decisions involving federal law.
The federal po
“nonoriginalists,” they argue that it is important that the Constitution evolve by interpretation and not only by amendment. Nonoriginalism is the “view that courts should go beyond that set of references and enforce norms that cannot be discovered within the four corners of the document.”
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District of Columbia v. Heller
(2008)
Facts
Handgun possession is banned under District of Columbia (D) law. The law prohibits the registration of handguns and makes it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm. Furthermore all lawfully owned firearms must be kept unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock unless they are being used for lawful recreational activities or located in a place of business.
Dick Heller (P) is a special police officer in the District of Columbia. The District refused Heller’s application to register a handgun he wished to keep in his home. Heller filed this lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia on Second Amendment grounds. Heller sought an injunction against enforcement of the bar on handgun registration, the licensing requirement prohibiting the carrying of a firearm in the home without a license, and the trigger-lock requirement insofar as it prohibits the use of functional firearms within the home.
The District Court dismissed Heller’s complaint. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed and directed the District Court to enter summary judgment in favor of the District of Columbia. The Court of Appeals construed Heller’s complaint as seeking the right to render a firearm operable and carry it in his home only when necessary for self-defense, and held that the total ban on handguns violated the individual right to possess firearms under the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
Issue
What rights are protected by the Second Amendment?
Holding and Rule (Scalia)
The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
Text of the Second Amendment
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Constitutional Construction
The prefatory clause “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” merely announces a purpose. It does not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
The militia consisted of all males capable of acting together for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable citizen militias, thereby enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The Antifederalists therefore sought to preserve the citizens’ militia by denying Congress the power to abridge the right of individuals to keep and bear arms.
