Article Three of the United States Constitution
Article Three of the United States Constitution establishes the judicial branch of the U.S. federal government. Under Article Three, the judicial branch consists of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as lower courts created by Congress. Article Three empowers the courts to handle cases or controversies arising under federal law, as well as other enumerated areas. Article Three also defines treason.
Section 1 of Article Three vests the judicial power of the United States in "one supreme Court", as well as "inferior courts" established by Congress. Section 1 authorizes the creation of inferior courts, but does not require it; the first inferior federal courts were established shortly after the ratification of the Constitution with the Judiciary Act of 1789. Section 1 also establishes that federal judges do not face term limits, and that an individual judge's salary may not be decreased. Article Three does not set the size of the Supreme Court or establish specific positions on the court, but Article One establishes the position of chief justice. Along with the Vesting Clauses of Article One and Article Two, Article Three's Vesting Clause establishes the separation of powers among the three branches of government.
Section 2 of Article Three delineates federal judicial power. The Case or Controversy Clause restricts the judiciary's power to actual cases and controversies, meaning that federal judicial power does not extend to cases which are hypothetical, or which are proscribed due to standing, mootness, or ripeness issues. Section 2 states that the federal judiciary's power extends to cases arising under the Constitution, federal laws, federal treaties, controversies involving multiple states or foreign powers, and other enumerated areas. Section 2 gives the Supreme Court original jurisdiction when ambassadors, public officials, or the states are a party in the case, leaving the Supreme Court with appellate jurisdiction in all other areas to which the federal judiciary's jurisdiction extends. Section 2 also gives Congress the power to strip the Supreme Court of appellate jurisdiction, and establishes that all federal crimes must be tried before a jury. Section 2 does not expressly grant the federal judiciary the power of judicial review, but the courts have exercised this power since the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison.
Section 3 of Article Three defines treason and empowers Congress to punish treason. Section 3 requires that at least two witnesses testify to the treasonous act, or that the individual accused of treason confess in open court. It also limits the ways in which Congress can punish those convicted of treason.
Background
Unlike the Articles of Confederation, the US Constitution separated the legislative, executive and judicial powers. Article III separates and places the judicial power in the judiciary. This idea is most often attributed to Montesquieu. Although not the progenitor, Montesquieu's writing on the separation of power in The Spirit of Laws was immensely influential on the U.S. Constitution.Section 1: Federal courts
Section 1 is one of the three vesting clauses of the United States Constitution, which vests the judicial power of the United States in federal courts, requires the supreme court, allows inferior courts, requires good behavior tenure for judges, and prohibits decreasing the salaries of judges.The Committee of Detail report reads slightly differently:
Clause 1: Vesting of judicial power and number of courts
Article III authorizes one Supreme Court, but does not set the number of justices that must be appointed to it. Article One, Section 3, Clause 6 refers to a "chief justice". After the Judiciary Act of 1869, the number of justices has been fixed at nine: one chief justice, and eight associate justices.Proposals have been made at various times for organizing the Supreme Court into separate panels; none garnered wide support, and thus the constitutionality of such a division is unknown. In a 1937 letter to Senator Burton Wheeler during the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill debate, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote, "the Constitution does not appear to authorize two or more Supreme Courts functioning in effect as separate courts."
The Supreme Court is the only federal court that is explicitly established by the Constitution. During the Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made for the Supreme Court to be the only federal court, having both original jurisdiction and appellate jurisdiction. This proposal was rejected in favor of the provision that exists today. The Supreme Court has interpreted this provision as enabling Congress to create inferior courts under both Article III, Section 1, and Article I, Section 8. The Article III courts, which are also known as "constitutional courts", were first created by the Judiciary Act of 1789, and are the only courts with judicial power. Article I courts, which are also known as "legislative courts", consist of regulatory agencies, such as the United States Tax Court.
In certain types of cases, Article III courts may exercise appellate jurisdiction over Article I courts. In Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., the Court held that "there are legal matters, involving public rights, which may be presented in such form that the judicial power is capable of acting on them", and which are susceptible to review by an Article III court. Later, in Ex parte Bakelite Corp., the Court declared that Article I courts "may be created as special tribunals to examine and determine various matters, arising between the government and others, which from their nature do not require judicial determination and yet are susceptible of it." Other cases, such as bankruptcy cases, have been held not to involve judicial determination, and may therefore go before Article I courts. Similarly, several courts in the District of Columbia, which is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress, are Article I courts rather than Article III courts. This article was expressly extended to the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico by the U.S. Congress through Federal Law 89-571, 80 Stat. 764, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966. This transformed the article IV United States territorial court in Puerto Rico, created in 1900, to an Article III federal judicial district court.
The Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, frequently called the court-packing plan, was a legislative initiative to add more justices to the Supreme Court proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after his victory in the 1936 presidential election. Although the bill aimed generally to overhaul and modernize the entire federal court system, its central and most controversial provision would have granted the President power to appoint an additional justice to the Supreme Court for every incumbent justice over the age of 70, up to a maximum of six.
The Constitution is silent when it comes to judges of courts which have been abolished. The Judiciary Act of 1801 increased the number of courts to permit Federalist president John Adams to appoint a number of Federalist judges before Thomas Jefferson took office. When Jefferson became president, the Congress abolished several of these courts and made no provision for the judges of those courts. The Judicial Code of 1911 abolished circuit riding and transferred the circuit courts authority and jurisdiction to the district courts.
Clause 2: Tenure
The Constitution provides that judges "shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour". The term "good behaviour" is interpreted to mean that judges may serve for the remainder of their lives, although they may resign or retire voluntarily. A judge may also be removed by impeachment and conviction by congressional vote ; this has occurred fourteen times. Three other judges – Mark W. Delahay, George W. English, and Samuel B. Kent – chose to resign rather than go through the impeachment process.Clause 3: Salaries
The compensation of judges may be increased, but not decreased, during their continuance in office. However, Congress may alter a promised future increase before it becomes effective. Thus, in United States v. Will, the court held that Congress could repeal or modify a statutorily defined formula for annual cost-of-living increases to the compensation of federal judges, but Congress must act with respect to any particular increase before the increase takes effect.Section 2: Judicial power, jurisdiction, and trial by jury
Section 2 delineates federal judicial power, and brings that power into execution by conferring original jurisdiction and also appellate jurisdiction upon the Supreme Court. Additionally, this section requires trial by jury in all criminal cases, except impeachment cases.Clause 1: Cases and controversies
Clause 1 of Section 2 authorizes the federal courts to hear actual cases and controversies only. Their judicial power does not extend to cases which are hypothetical, or which are proscribed due to standing, mootness, or ripeness issues. Generally, a case or controversy requires the presence of adverse parties who have a genuine interest at stake in the case. In Muskrat v. United States,, the Supreme Court denied jurisdiction to cases brought under a statute permitting certain Native Americans to bring suit against the United States to determine the constitutionality of a law allocating tribal lands. Counsel for both sides were to be paid from the federal Treasury. The Supreme Court held that, though the United States was a defendant, the case in question was not an actual controversy; rather, the statute was merely devised to test the constitutionality of a certain type of legislation. Thus the Court's ruling would be nothing more than an advisory opinion; therefore, the court dismissed the suit for failing to present a "case or controversy."A significant omission is that although Clause 1 provides that federal judicial power shall extend to "the laws of the United States," it does not also provide that it shall extend to the laws of the several or individual states. In turn, the Judiciary Act of 1789 and subsequent acts never granted the U.S. Supreme Court the power to review decisions of state supreme courts on pure issues of state law. It is this silence which tacitly made state supreme courts the final expositors of the common law in their respective states. They were free to diverge from English precedents and from each other on the vast majority of legal issues which had never been made part of federal law by the Constitution, and the U.S. Supreme Court could do nothing, as it would ultimately concede in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins. By way of contrast, other English-speaking federations like Australia and Canada never adopted the Erie doctrine. That is, their highest courts have always possessed plenary power to impose a uniform nationwide common law upon all lower courts and never adopted the strong American distinction between federal and state common law.