ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the origins, development, structure, and role of the US federal courts. It describes the English common law background of American law and the formal origins of US courts in Article III of the Constitution. The chapter describes the three-tier structure of the federal courts, rising from the district courts, through a layer of appellate courts, to the United States Supreme Court. The American legal system is set in motion only when a case or controversy brings parties, one of which may be a governmental entity, who are directly involved in a dispute before an appropriate court. The Supreme Court exercises a particularly intensive form of judicial review over the lower courts of the federal system. The chapter concludes by dealing with two volatile issues—judicial selection and judicial philosophy.
