Talk:United States federal courts
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] Merger/Restructuring?
I believe that this page should be merged with Article I and Article III tribunals (while that page is new and doesn't have many links to fix) and then we can do a more extensive reorganization of the US judicial pages. I think that this page should become a very broad introduction to the different types of courts (pretty much incorporating most of the info from the above Article I/III page). Then the information here about the structure of the (article III) judicial branch should be moved to a new page on the United States federal judciary (or judicial branch, etc.) which would have an overview of the three levels of courts (with links to those pages), the appeals process, etc. Finally, we could create an Article I courts page, where we'll put the controversy section, and which we can eventually expand to include a discussion of their history, purposes, procedures, etc. The existing links here will still make sense after this change, so we'll just have to fix links to the Article I/III page (where I've cross-posted this suggestion). So...am I crazy? Ddye 17:38, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- As discussed on Talk: Article I and Article III tribunals, I think we're going to scale down this plan to just merging that page into this one. If anyone's watching this page, I'd appreciate any input you have. Ddye 17:48, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This article really sucks, it didn't answer a single question on my history homework.
- If you need the history of the federal courts, there are already many excellent books and Web pages on that subject. --Coolcaesar 21:52, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
"Greater power is vested in Article III courts because the greater control that exercise over Article I courts would threaten the balance of power between the branches of government." That sentence needs to be cleaned up. I suspect it should say 'greater control that [the Legislative branch] exercise[s] over Article I courts', but either way there's an ungrammatical clause there.
Federal courts are not courts of General Jurisdiction. I'm not sure exactly what you would call it but only state trial courts are considered to have general jurisdictions. Federal trial courts can only hear cases if certain restrictions are met (e.g. federal question, diversity, venue). Court of Appeals only has appellate jurisdiction. SCOTUS has original jursidiction over a very limited set of cases (per Article III of the Constitution) and appellate jurisdiction over all other matters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.50.14 (talk) 14:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- I think you are taking too narrow a definition of general jurisdiction. Whether or not a court hears cases involving claims arising from another jurisdiction's law- ie. state v. federal- does not make it general or specific. The USDCs are the courts of general jurisdiction within the federal system just as the various states (usually) have their courts of general jurisdiction. At any rate, the definition of district courts (a subdefinition under the definition of district) in Black's Law Dictionary, p. 476 (6th ed. 1990) refers to the federal district courts as courts of "general Federal jurisdiction".
- With regard to the USSC and the Fed Circuit Courts, I think those should be listed under a heading of Appellate Courts, not general jurisdiction. Of course, the USSC does have original jurisdiction in very rare cases, so I'm not sure what to do about that. InMyHumbleOpinion (talk) 06:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Courts of the United States
Would it appropriate to redirect Courts of the United States here? Or to move this there? Thanks, Drum guy (talk) 14:23, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
