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Page 3 of 7 IV. The Jurisdiction of the Federal Courts 1. Federal courts can hear cases “arising under the Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties” (federal-question cases) and cases involving citizens of different states (diversity cases). i. The rest is supposedly left up to the state courts, but some cases can be heard by either one. a. If a person breaks a state and federal law, sues a person from another state for over $50,000, or robs a federally insured bank, for example. b. Lawyers often pick the court that will give their most desired outcome. ii. Some people are tried under both courts (i.e. the cops that beat Rodney King were tried in a state court under criminal charges of assault and in a federal court for civil rights violations). a. This is because the dual sovereignty doctrine of the courts allows each level of the courts to enact laws serving its own purposes and because the right must be reserved to prosecute a criminal, even if he has the sympathies of one court. iii. State court appeals go to the federal courts, though, as do violations of federal laws, declaring bankruptcy, and inter-state disputes. 2. Most federal court cases begin in state courts, are appealed, and then eventually selected by the Supreme Court via a writ of certiorari. i. Writs of certiorari are often granted when two+ federal appeals courts have decided differently and/or there is a claim that a law violates the Constitution. 3. The Supreme Court’s problem is that giving seeing too many cases swamps it with work, but seeing too few lets lower federal courts make final decisions on the interpretation of the Constitution and on federal laws, and since there are twelve of them, they might (and have) disagree.
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