Maryland, a constitution that attempted to detail every aspect of its own application "would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. Its nature, therefore, requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves.
The Constitution limits the Court to dealing with "Cases" and "Controversies. The Court does not give advisory opinions; rather, its function is limited only to deciding specific cases.
The Justices must exercise considerable discretion in deciding which cases to hear, since approximately 7,, civil and criminal cases are filed in the Supreme Court each year from the various state and federal courts.
The Supreme Court also has "original jurisdiction" in a very small number of cases arising out of disputes between States or between a State and the Federal Government. When the Supreme Court rules on a constitutional issue, that judgment is virtually final; its decisions can be altered only by the rarely used procedure of constitutional amendment or by a new ruling of the Court.
However, when the Court interprets a statute, new legislative action can be taken. Chief Justice Marshall expressed the challenge which the Supreme Court faces in maintaining free government by noting: "We must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding.
Toggle navigation. The Court and Constitutional Interpretation. One exception to the lifetime appointment is for magistrate judges, which are selected by district judges and serve a specified term.
The district courts are the general trial courts of the federal court system. Each district court has at least one United States District Judge, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for a life term. District courts handle trials within the federal court system — both civil and criminal. The districts are the same as those for the U. Attorneys, and the U. Attorney is the primary prosecutor for the federal government in his or her respective area.
There are over district court judges nationwide. Some tasks of the district court are given to federal magistrate judges. Magistrates are appointed by the district court by a majority vote of the judges and serve for a term of eight years if full-time and four years if part-time, but they can be reappointed after completion of their term. In criminal matters, magistrate judges may oversee certain cases, issue search warrants and arrest warrants, conduct initial hearings, set bail, decide certain motions such as a motion to suppress evidence , and other similar actions.
In civil cases, magistrates often handle a variety of issues such as pre-trial motions and discovery. Federal trial courts have also been established for a few subject-specific areas. Each federal district also has a bankruptcy court for those proceedings. Once the federal district court has decided a case, the case can be appealed to a United States court of appeal.
There are twelve federal circuits that divide the country into different regions. Cases from the district courts of those states are appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Additionally, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has a nationwide jurisdiction over very specific issues such as patents. Each circuit court has multiple judges, ranging from six on the First Circuit to twenty-nine on the Ninth Circuit.
Circuit court judges are appointed for life by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Each year the federal courts issue hundreds of decisions in FOIA cases, addressing all aspects of the law. These decisions shape the way the law is interpreted and applied by the many attorneys and access professionals across the government who handle FOIA requests, administrative appeals, and litigation.
Although we have designed these summaries to reflect the key aspects of each decision, by their nature these are summaries only, and such things as internal citations and quotations have been omitted. Our goal is to provide readers with an overview of the cases as they are decided during the year, but for a complete understanding of any given case readers are, of course, encouraged to read it in its entirety.
This website includes decisions decided since January Summaries of decisions decided between May and December are available in the Court Decisions Archive. All decisions are presented chronologically, based on the date of issuance, with the most recent decision appearing first.
Each decision is tagged topically with the relevant exemption or procedural consideration addressed. For example, to see all cases decided in a U. Using the Court Decisions Page.
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