In ________________ the Supreme Court Extended Judicial Review to State Laws

Judicial Review

The Issue:  Does the Constitution Give the Supreme Court the Power to Invalidate the
Actions of Other Branches of Government?

Introduction
In 1800 the Federalists and their candidate, President John Adams, lost the election to Thomas Jefferson.  Early in 1801 the lame-duck Federalist Congress enacted a controversial Judiciary Act that created 58 new judgeships, including 42 justiceships of the peace, for Adams to engage.  Jefferson complained that the Federalists "have retired into the judiciary every bit a stronghold."  On the night March 3, 1801, John Marshall, acting as secretary of state, affixed the official seal to the commissions for the justices of the peace.  He did not, however, deliver the commissions.  The next day, after Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated, he directed the new secretary of state, James Madison, to withhold delivery of 17 of the 42 commissions, including that of William Marbury.  William Marbury sued for a writ of mandamus to crave Madison to paw over his commission.
William Marbury The decision in Marbury'southward case, written by Chief Justice John Marshall (the very same John Marshall who affixed the seal to Marbury'south commission--talk well-nigh a conflict of interest!) established and justified the ability of judicial review.  It is the first case read by nearly every showtime-year law student and is mostly considered the greatest of all landmark cases.  Marshall strained to accomplish his result.  The plain words of Section 13 of the Judiciary Deed indicate that Marbury went to the incorrect court or invoked the wrong statute (or both), but Marshall proceeded as if the adapt were authorized by Section 13 then declared the statute unconstitutional on the grounds that it purported to aggrandize the Court's original jurisdiction in violation of Article III.  Marbury'southward suit was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.  Marshall's decision--brilliant in its conception--allowed the Court to brand Jefferson a violator of civil rights without issuing an order that the President could accept ignored.

Case
Marbury vs. Madison (1803)

Fragment from John Marshall'southward Handwritten Decision

Questions

i. Is judicial review a good idea? Should ix unelected judges be able to tell our elected representatives what they can and cannot do?
2. Are courts more probable to block an aware consensus with their adherence to outdated principles or to protect the politically weak from oppressive majorities?
three.  Are judges, protected with lifetime tenure and drawn generally from the educated class, more likely to be cogitating and higher up the passing enthusiasms that drive legislative action?
iv.  Does Marbury mean that legislators or members of the executive branch accept no responsibility to estimate the constitutionality of their own actions?
5.  Could nosotros have a workable system of government without judicial review?

"The prime number and most necessary part of the Courtroom has been that of validation, not that of invalidation.  What a government of limited powers needs, at the starting time and forever, is some ways of satisfying the people that information technology has taken all steps humanly possible to stay inside its powers."

--Professor Charles L. Black

Links
Marbury v. Madison Background & Players
(James Madison Univ.)

Judicial Review (Wikipedia) 1800-1809 American Events Timeline

John Marshall - Definer of a Nation

1803 Petition, Argue & Vote of Wm. Marbury & Others
(from Annals of Congress)

Pitching quoits

Q uoits, Anyone?: The Personality Differences of John Marshall and Thomas Jefferson "[John Marshall] was proud of his skills in pitching quoits--a game involving a kind of round horseshoe--and could be observed at the Quoits Society in Richmond toward the stop of his life downing Madeira and rum  dial, getting down on his easily and knees earnestly measuring the altitude between his quoit and those of his opponents, and and then shouting in unaffected happiness when he won.  It is hard to imagine the withdrawn and aristocratic Jefferson in a similar posture." --Jeffrey Rosen, The Supreme Courtroom: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America (2006).

Primary Justice John Marshall

The Judiciary Deed  (Section xiii):

     The human action to institute the judicial courts of the U.s.a. authorizes the supreme court "to issue writs of mandamus, in cases warranted past the principles and usages of law, to any courts appointed, or persons holding office, under the say-so of the United States."

Commodity 3 of Constitution
Department. 2

     The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties fabricated, or which shall exist made, nether their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State;--between Citizens of dissimilar States; --betwixt Citizens of the same Land claiming Lands under Grants of unlike States, and between a Land, or the Citizens thereof, and strange States, Citizens or Subjects.

      In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

Original Intent & Judicial Review

The Constitution does non expressly provide for judicial review.  What should be fabricated of this fact?  Does it suggest that the framers did non intend to give the courts such a power?  Not necessarily, although that is 1 explanation for its absenteeism.  Information technology is likewise possible that the framers idea the ability of judicial review was sufficiently clear from the construction of government that it need not exist expressly stated.  A third possibility is that the framers didn't recollect that the issue would always come up, considering Congress would never pass legislation outside of its enumerated powers.

Simply eleven of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, according to Madison's notes, expressed an opinion on the desirability of judicial review.  Of those that did and then, nine by and large supported the idea and two opposed. Ane delegate, James Wilson, argued that the courts should accept the even broader power to strike down whatsoever unjust federal or state legislation.  It may also exist worth noting that over half of the 13 original states gave their own judges some power of judicial review.

Footnote: The Flying Fish Case Two Views on Seizures John Adams T. Jefferson Vice President Thomas Jefferson opposed the 1799 order of President  Adams allowing the seizing of ships.

Many people know the beginning  Supreme Courtroom conclusion to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional (It's Marbury, of course), merely few people could identify the Court's first decision declaring Executive Branch activity to be unconstitutional. Little v Barreme (1804), called the Flying Fish case, involved an order by President John Adams, issued in 1799 during our brief war with France,  authorizing the Navy to seize ships bound for French ports.  The president'south order was inconsistent with an act of Congress declaring the government to have no such authorization.  After a Navy Helm in December 1799 seized the Danish vessel, the Flying Fish, pursuant to Adams's club , the owners of the ship sued the captain for trespass in U. S. maritime court.  On appeal, C. J. Marshall rejected the captain's argument that he could not exist sued because he was just following presidential orders.  The Court noted that commanders "act at their own peril" when they obey invalid orders--and the president'due south order was outside of his powers, given the congressional action.

friedfifery.blogspot.com

Source: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/judicialrev.htm

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