Federal Courts

Catalog description

No other nation state has a judicial system as complex and as powerful as the United States' multilayered and decentralized judicial systems. At the center of the U.S. judicial systems is the federal courts and at the apex of the entire system is the U.S. Supreme Court. Since the early twentieth century, that court has become a primary definer and enforcer of federal rights, especially constitutional rights, and it has taken a leading role in defining the relationship between the federal government and the fifty states. This course explores the scope and limits of the power of the federal courts as defined by its jurisdiction and remedial authority, and it assesses the power of congress to restrict and allocate judicial authority among federal and state courts as well as Article III courts, legislative courts and administrative agencies.