Our Constitution Article III Sections 1 to 3 Judicial Branch

Since I’ve been quiet for a while, I do apologize, I thought today would be a good day to talk a bit more about the Constitution of the United States. Let’s move on and take a look at Article III which has a total of 3 sections. Of course I will repeat myself and say I am not expert on the Constitution but I do have a love for this country, our founding fathers, our history, and our Constitution so my hope is we all learn a little something from breaking it down and trying to understand it. In doing so we will understand more what our founding fathers saw for this great nation and where we should be headed instead of where we are being pushed by so many of today’s political leaders.

Article III of the Constitution of the United States of America is the section that creates the judicial branch of the Unites States. What is the judicial branch? It is the system of courts that take a look at the law and then apply it to different cases. The United States judicial branch of the federal government includes the United States Supreme Court, which is the highest court in the country, and all the lower courts that are created by Congress. 

Section 1 of Article III creates the federal courts are of the United States. This court system must have one Supreme Court with one Chief Justice who presides over the court. What Section 1 does not tell us is how many justices there must be however, current law says there must me nine justices with one of them being the Chief Justice.

How is the Chief Justice chosen? The Chief Justice is chosen the same as the Associate Justices, they are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. There are no requirements for the Chief Justice to first serve as an Associate Justice however, 5 of the 17 Chief Justices have served on the Supreme Court as Associate Justices prior to becoming Chief Justice.

Article III does not say there has to be any lower courts but it does state Congress is given the power to create and remove lower courts as needed. As for the judges appointed to the courts Section 1 Article III says the judges can hold their offices for the rest of their lives or until they are convicted of a crime or impeached by Congress. As for their pay it says their pay cannot be decreased while they are in office but they it can be increased. The eight Associated Justices salary is $ 251,800 a year while the Chief Justice earns a bit more at $ 263,300 per year, as of January 2017. Ironically they make more than the Vice President of the United States who earns $ 230,700 per year.

Section 2 of Article III talks about the powers of the judicial branch. It describes the cases the court can preside over and what topics those cases can be about. The Supreme Court has the right to hear all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, meaning it has original jurisdiction. Section 2 of Article III also says that crimes have to be tried by a jury, except cases of Impeachment, unless the defendant does not want one.  These trials are to be held in the states where the said crime has been committed. However when a crime is committed within any state, meaning across state lines from one state to another, the trial shall be at such a place as the Congress may by Law direct.

Section 3 of Article III talks about treason against the United States of America. This can consist of levying war against the nation, or helping enemies of the United States by giving them aid and comfort. A person cannot be convicted of treason without the testimony of two witnesses to the act or if they confess in open court to committing the act of treason.

So that’s the outline of our judicial system in America. Now let’s take a deeper look at the Supreme Court. In the years since the Article III of the Constitution was created the Supreme Court had a hand in many decisions which helped shape American history. They have heard cases on election issues, powers of business and government, civil rights and more. These issues are generally fought throughout the judicial system until they reach the final and last resort, the Supreme Court. Our Supreme Court has the final authority to interpret constitution questions, federal law, and they can uphold or reverse decisions made by lower courts.

Although they are now housed in a beautiful marble structure complete with their own police force and a gym on the top floor which includes a basketball court they didn’t start out that way. Our Supreme Court was functioning for about 145 years before they were granted their own home so to speak, at the urging of Chief Justice William Taft. In 1929 Congress authorized $9.74 million dollars for the project. When the Supreme Court convened for the first it was in February 1790 in New York City which was the nation’s capital at the time. From 1791 to 1800 Philadelphia served as the nation’s capital while Washington, D.C. was under construction so for these nine years this was their home. It wasn’t until 1801 that the Supreme Court made it to Washington but it still didn’t have a home of its own. They were moved around to various offices in the Capital building and when the British burned the Capital building down in 1814 the court actually met in a private home. So getting their own building in 1929 was long overdue.

As you know we now have 9 justices on the Supreme Court but that’s not how we started out. As I said before it was up to Congress to decide how many justices served on the Supreme Court. There was the Judiciary Act of 1789 passed which set the number at six which gave us a chief justice and five associated justices. In 1807 Congress increased the number to seven, in 1839 it went up to nine, and in 1863 it was bumped up once again to ten.

With Congress being in control of our justice system they took the opportunity in 1866 to pass the Judicial Circuits Act which not only dropped the number of justices back to seven but it prevented President Andrew Johnson from being able to appoint anyone new to the court. See Congress has been playing these games for a long time. Just three years later Congress decided to raise the number of justices to nine where is to this day.

When Franklin Roosevelt was President he attempted to get Congress to pass legislation to allow new justices to be added to the court since it would be beneficial to his New Deal programs. His idea was to be able to have up to 15 justices on the Supreme Court with one justice added for every justice over 70 who didn’t want to retire. Congress didn’t agree with his plan.

There are no official qualifications for becoming a Supreme Court justice. There are no rules about age, citizenship, or residency requirements like there are for other offices in the United States. Odd since this is the highest court in our land. Since the first time they convened the Supreme Court has had 6 justices who were foreign born, the youngest justice was 32 years old when he was appointed in 1811, and the oldest Associated Justice was Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. who was 90 years old when he retired.  He was in office for 30 years. They all however have one thing in common and that would be they were all lawyers before joining the court, obviously.

Before attending law school was standard practice, which was during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, many got their legal training by studying under a mentor. The last such justice was James Byrnes who served on the court from 1941 to 1942. Another amazing tidbit on Justice Byrnes is he also didn’t graduate from high school. He got his training in law as a law clerk and then took and passed the bar exam. To date, Harvard has produced more members of the court than any other law school since it was established in 1817, making it America’s oldest operating law school.

Even though justices are appointed for life they can retire or be impeached. More than 50 have chosen to retire or resign. Some of the names you may recognize are John Jay, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor. As for being impeached, in doing my research I found there has been one justice who was impeached. I was surprised to find this out because I didn’t’ remember it from my history classes in high school. In 1804 Samuel Chase was impeached by the House of Representatives. He was accused of acting in a partisan way during some court proceedings but the U.S. Senate did not agree with them. Samuel Chase was acquitted by the Senate in 1805 and remained on the bench until he passed away in 1811. Can’t resist pointing out how the House and the Senate banged heads even then.

There was one Chief Justice who served both on the Supreme Court and as President of the United States, not at the same time of course. Taft had an amazing career in American politics and carved out a place for himself in American history. He was the 27^th President of the United States and held office from 1909 to 1913. During his time in the Oval Office he appointed five associate justices and one chief justice. After he lost re-election Taft went on to teach law at Yale and he also served on the American Bar Association. During his time as President Taft appointed Chief Justice Edward Douglass White who passed away in 1921. It was at this time that President Warren Harding nominated Taft for the Supreme Court as White’s replacement. He served as Chief Justice from then until February of 1930 when he resigned due to poor health. Unfortunately he passed away a month later.

During his time as Chief Justice, William Taft advocated for the justices to be able to hear the cases they wanted to hear. He was influential in getting the Judiciary Act of 1925 passed. The way it works today is at least four justices must vote to grant a petition to review a case before it can be heard by the court.

No one can nominate a Supreme Court justice except the President of the United States whenever there is an opening on the court. Just because the President makes the nomination does not mean the person nominated automatically becomes a justice. Each person nominated must be confirmed by the United States Senate. President George Washington made the most appointments to the Supreme Court appointing 11 justices. Franklin Roosevelt appointed 9 so he holds the second spot. We already know Andrew Johnson did not appoint any justices but there were three other Presidents who did not make any appoints as well, William Henry Harrison, who passed away only one month after he was sworn into office, Zachary Taylor who passed away 16 months after taking office, and Jimmy Carter.

Since the beginning there have been 160 nominations, 124 confirmed, and seven of them opting out of the position. We think President Trump is unpopular with the Senate but he isn’t the only one. 

When William Henry Harrison passed away John Tyler assumed the office of President from 1841 to 1845. During that time he made nine nominations but due to his unpopular political view he managed to only get one of those nominations confirmed by the Senate. Again, as you can see the games started long before 2017 and President Trump.

As I said the court does not hear every case presented to them. Most of their cases come to them on an appeal from lower federal courts and state courts. They do have the right to hear a case for the first time before any appellate review. In cases involving ambassadors or disputes between two states this would happen. Since they hear cases primarily appeal, it’s uncommon for witnesses or evidence to be presented to the court. The way it works is attorneys submit written legal briefs in advance and justices typically listen to oral arguments, in which each side has 30 minutes to make their presentation. This is where the justices ask their questions. During the oral arguments the courtroom is opened to the public but not allowed to be televised or photographed. There have been audio recordings of the oral arguments since 1955. These recordings are released after the arguments are over. Later the justices meet in private to discuss and vote on each case. If there is a tie vote, the decision of the lower court is then upheld.

A lot of responsibility rests on their shoulders. The Supreme Court has helped shape and mold the laws of this great nation. We started out as a nation fumbling to find its way. We were lucky to have some of the greatest minds in the world hash out our Constitution, our laws, and give us a blueprint to follow and hopefully improve on. In this great nation only the laws of the Constitution should hold true and strong and those who serve on our Supreme Court have the responsibility to see to it, it stays that way.

May God Bless America and keep us striving to improve our quality of life.