gov chapter 18
Terms
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- district courts
- trial courts in fed. system th hear civil and criminal cases (94 of them)
- certificate
- used when the lower court is not clear about the procedure or the rule of law that should apply to case; lower court asks supreme to certify the answer to a question
- precedents
- examples to be followed in similar cases as they arise in lower courts
- amicus curiae
- briefs filed by persons or groups who are not actual parties to a case ut have interest in the outcome
- jurisdiction
- authority of a court to hear a case (try and decide)
- civil case
- some noncriminal matter
- special courts
- created by congress to hear cases from the expressed poweres of congress
- criminal case
- case which a defendant is tried for committing some action that congress has declared to be a federal crime
- concurring opinion
- to add or emphasize a point that was not made in the majority opnion
- courts of appeals
- created by congress in 1891 to relieve the supreme court of it's burden
- solicitor general
- fed gov chief lawyer
- civilian tribunal
- court operating as part of the judicial branch separate from the military establishment
- majority opinion
- annouces the courts decision in a case and sets out the reasoning on which it is based
- plantiff
- the person who files a suit
- writ of certiorari
- an order by the Court directing a lower court to send up the record in a given case for it's review
- appellate jurisdiction
- a court that hears a case on appeal from a lower court
- defendant
- person who m the complaint is against
- briefs
- written documents filed with the court before the oral arguments begin; detailed statements support one side of a case
- exclusive jurisdiction
- cases that can only be heard in federal courts
- original jurisdiction
- court in which the case if first heard
- concurrent jurisdiction
- they share the power to hear cases
- dissenting opinions
- written by those who don't agree with the majority decision