Judicial system

“ The Court's approach must trouble all concerned with the function of the judicial process in today's world. As my Brother Douglas has said: 'The judiciary is an indispensable part of the operation of our federal system. With the growing complexities of government it is often the one and only place where effective relief can be obtained. ”

“ Federal judicial power, beyond all doubt, has its origin in the Constitution, but the organization of the system and the distribution of the subjects of jurisdiction among such inferior courts as Congress may from time to time ordain and establish, within the scope of the judicial power, always have been, and of right must be the work of the Congress. ”

“ Indisputably under our constitutional system the right to try offenses against the criminal laws, and, upon conviction, to impose the punishment provided by law, is judicial, and it is equally to be conceded that, in exerting the powers vested in them on such subject, courts inherently possess ample right to exercise reasonable, that is, judicial, discretion to enable them to wisely exert their authority. ”

“ Many aspects of the prerevolutionary judicial system survive in the civil and criminal courts. For example, defendants have the right to a public trial, may choose their own lawyer, and have the right of appeal. ”

“ Chief Justice Marshall, that "the judicial department has no will in any case. Judicial power, as contradistinguished from the power of the laws, has no existence. Courts are the mere instruments of the law, and can will nothing. ”

“ However late this objection has been made, or may be made, in any cause in an inferior or appellate court of the United States, it must be considered and decided before any court can move one farther step in the cause, as any movement is necessarily to exercise the jurisdiction. Jurisdiction is the power to hear and determine the subject matter in controversy between the parties to a suit, to adjudicate or exercise any judicial power over them. ”

“ The power to punish for contempts is inherent in all courts; its existence is essential to the preservation of order in judicial proceedings, and to the enforcement of the judgments, orders, and writs of the courts, and consequently to the due administration of justice. The moment the courts of the United States were called into existence and invested with jurisdiction over any subject, they became possessed of this power. ”

“ It being, then, established that the language of this clause is imperative, the next question is as to the cases to which it shall apply. The answer is found in the constitution itself. The judicial power shall extend to all the cases enumerated in the constitution. As the mode is not limited, it may extend to all such cases, in any form, in which judicial power may be exercised. ”

“ Now, this want of jurisdiction of the inferior court in a summary proceeding to remove an officer of the court, or disbar an attorney or counsellor, is one of the specific cases in which this writ is the appropriate remedy. We have already seen, from the definition and office of it, that it is issued to the inferior courts 'to enforce the due exercise of those judicial or ministerial powers with which the crown or legislature have invested them ”

“ The attorney-general of the United States, in a written opinion, given by command of the President of the United States, says as follows: “These officers, [Pg 345] [the commissioners,] and each of them, have judicial power, and jurisdiction to hear, examine, and decide the case.” “The certificate to be granted to the owner is to be regarded as the act and judgment of a judicial tribunal having competent jurisdiction.” “Congress has constituted a tribunal with exclusive jurisdiction to determine summarily, and without appeal, who are fugitives from service.” ”

“ If there be one power that a State possesses, which ought to be deemed beyond the control, in any mode, of the National Government or of any of its courts, it is the power by judicial proceedings to appear in its own courts, by its law-officer or by attorneys, and seek the guidance of those courts in respect of matters of a justiciable nature. If the state court, by its judgment, in such a suit, should disregard the injunctions of the Federal Constitution, that judgment would be subject to review by this court upon writ of error or appeal. ”

“ Unless we respect and bow in deference to the final decisions of the highest judicial tribunal in our country, we are driven at once to anarchy, to violence, to mob law, and there is no security left for our property, or our own civil rights. What protects your property but the law, and who expounds the law but the judicial tribunals; and if an appeal is to be taken from the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, in all cases where a person does not like the adjudication, to whom is that appeal to be taken! ”

“ It is none the less the judgment of a judicial tribunal dealing with questions judicial in their nature, and presented in the customary forms of judicial proceedings, because its effect may be to aid an administrative or executive body in the performance of duties legally imposed upon it by congress in execution of a power granted by the constitution. ”

“ Here a special tribunal has been created for a special purpose. It has been clothed with power to compel the attendance of witnesses, 'and to finally determine the right of each claimant or occupant to purchase' from the United States, under the provisions of the act of congress, the ground he occupies or claims. The duties of the tribunal are judicial in their character, and their decisions evidently intended to be binding on the parties. ”

“ The purpose of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 is to control the practice of attorneys, or those who act as their own attorneys, in the conduct of litigation in the federal courts. Extending judicial power far beyond that boundary, the Court, relying only on its rulemaking authority, now holds that citizens who seek the aid of the federal courts may risk money damages or other sanctions if they do not satisfy some objective standard of care in the preparation or litigation of a case. ”

“ Justice shall be administered gratuitously throughout the entire territory of the Republic.{229}
Art. 85. The courts shall take cognizance of all cases, whether civil, criminal, or between the Government and private parties.
Art. 86. No judicial commissions or extraordinary tribunals, no matter under what name, shall ever be created. ”

“ Congress having exercised its constitutional authority to impose on the Government a legally binding obligation, the decisive question is whether it invaded the judicial province of the Court of Claims by directing it to determine the extent of the obligation by reference, as directed, to the specified facts, and to give judgment for that amount. ”

“ Congress is vested with ample authority to provide for the exercise by the Supreme Court of appellate jurisdiction from the decisions of all inferior tribunals, whether state or national, in cases within the purview of the judicial power of the United States; but no mode is provided, by which any superior tribunal can re-examine, what the Supreme Court has itself decided. Ours is emphatically a government of laws, and not of men ”

“ It is, that whenever it appears that a court possessing judicial powers has rightfully obtained jurisdiction of a cause, all its subsequent proceedings are valid, however erroneous they may be, until they are reversed on error, or set aside by some direct proceeding for that purpose. The only difficulty in applying the rule, is to ascertain the question of jurisdiction. ”

“ In deciding on prerogative or legislative grants, the court can look only to the power and right by which they are made; questions of policy, expediency or discretion, are not judicial ones; if necessity or public good brings a power into action, the court cannot judge of its degree or extent. 4 Wheat. 143. It 'would be to pass the line which circumscribes the judicial department, and to tread on legislative ground. This court disclaims all pretensions to such a power.' Ibid. ”

“ It is stipulated that judges, who are appointed by the crown, may not be dismissed except in consequence of judicial sentence, nor transferred against their wishes from one tribunal to another, unless in the event of a reorganization of the courts; [799] that they shall exercise their functions strictly in compliance with law; that in criminal cases and cases involving political offenses trial shall be by jury; that in the administration of justice there shall be, so far as practicable, publicity and oral procedure ”

“ In the case referred to, the claims, as concerned those asserting them, were, on their part, tainted by no principle of illegality or immorality; on the contrary, were sustained by every principle of national law and natural justice, and nothing was wanting to render them recuperable, but a judicial tribunal competent to take cognizance thereof. ”

“ State courts construe their statutes according to their understanding of state policy and apply them to such situations as their interpretation of the statutory language requires. In so adjudging, they are the final judicial authority upon the meaning of their state law. ”

“ Surely it may be assumed as a postulate, that a court of justice, in adjudicating upon the rights of the citizen or of the State, should do, and can have power to do, nothing which is irregular, or vain, or useless. ”

“ In considering the grounds of the demurrer, this court held that the jurisdiction of a court is not exhausted by the rendition of judgment, but continues until that judgment is satisfied; that process subsequent to judgment is as essential to jurisdiction as process antecedent to judgment, observing that the judicial power would otherwise be incomplete and entirely inadequate to the purposes for which it is conferred by the constitution ”

“ In addition, a judicial exception to the longstanding policy evidenced by the statute has been made where a person about to be prosecuted in a state court can show that he will, if the proceeding in the state court is not enjoined, suffer irreparable damages. ”

“ And judicial tribunals are as much bound to recognize, as lawful, any act of injustice or crime, which the will and power of a single individual may have succeeded in accomplishing, as they are to recognize as lawful any act of injustice, which large and organized bodies of men, self-styled governments, may accomplish. ”

“ Since, however, considerations governing the exercise of judicial power are not mechanical criteria but derive from conceptions regarding the distribution of governmental powers in their manifold, changing guises, differences in the application of canons of jurisdiction have arisen from the beginning of the Court's history. [2] Conscious or unconscious leanings toward the serviceability of the judicial process in the adjustment of public controversies clothed in the form of private litigation inevitably affect decisions. ”

“ The fundamental conception of a judicial body is that of one hedged about by precedentsw hich are binding on the court without regard to the personality of its members. Break down this belief in judicial continuity, and let it be felt that on great constitutional questions this court is to depart from the settled conclusions of its predecessors, and to determine them all according to the mere opinion of those who temporarily fill its bench, and our constitution will, in my judgment, be bereft of value, and become a most dangerous instrument to the rights and liberties of the people. ”

“ After all, this is the Nation's ultimate judicial tribunal, not a super-legal-aid bureau. ”

“ The case occurs among the states of elective and periodical chancery judges; the habit and prejudice of England and of such states, are both portrayed in this imitation; property is as deeply affected by chancery judges as by law judges; and their power is uncontrolled by juries. prejudices, and not to reason, a few of the states have surrendered our foundation principle of responsibility, in constituting state judicial power, and all of them in the case of federal judicial power. Reason is an umpire between contradictions, but she cannot reconcile them. ”

“ As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but in my view its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court. ”

“ The people place the judicial power in the hands of a Supreme Court, Circuit Court, Landrosts, Juries, and such other persons as shall be entrusted with judicial powers, and leave all these free to discharge their function according to their judgment and consciences, according to the laws of the land. ”

“ The principle that a State conviction is a bar to a federal prosecution, and that, where there is concurrent jurisdiction, the tribunal first taking jurisdiction afterwards holds that jurisdiction, and exercises it throughout, to the exclusion of all others, necessarily leads to this result. ”

“ But with an enormous population which has no representative institutions it has been deemed wise to provide ample means of correcting judicial errors at the instance not only of the aggrieved person but also at the instance of the supervising judicial authorities, as a means of ensuring regularity and propriety in the conduct of judicial business by subordinate judges in out-of-the-way districts. ”

“ Every one connected with these branches of the public service is amenable to the jurisdiction which Congress has created for their government, and, while thus serving, surrenders his right to be tried by the civil courts. All other persons, citizens of states where the courts are open, if charged with crime, are guaranteed the inestimable privilege of trial by jury. ”