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CHAPTER TEN Study Chapter Summary ·
Laws serve five main functions in a
democratic society. They offer security, supply predictability, provide for
conflict resolution, reinforce society's values, and provide for the
distribution of social costs and benefits. ·
American law is based on legislation, but
its practice has evolved from a tradition of common law and the use of
precedent by judges. ·
The American legal system is considered to
be both adversarial and litigious in nature. The adversarial nature of our
system implies that two opposing sides advocate their position with lawyers in
the most prominent roles, while the judge has a relatively minor role in
comparison. ·
Laws serve many purposes and are classified
in different ways. Substantive laws
cover what we can or cannot do, while procedural
laws establish the procedures used to enforce law generally. Criminal laws concern specific behaviors
considered undesirable by the government, while civil laws cover interactions between individuals. Constitutional law refers to laws
included in the Constitution as well as the precedents established over time by
judicial decisions relating to these laws. Statutory
laws, administrative laws, and executive orders are established by
Congress and state legislatures, the bureaucracy, and the president,
respectively. ·
The founders were deliberately vague in
setting up a court system so as to avoid controversy during the ratification
process. The details of design were left to Congress, which established a
layering of district, state, and federal courts with differing rules of
procedure. ·
The Constitution never stated that courts
could decide the constitutionality of legislation. The courts gained the
extraconstitutional power of judicial review when Chief Justice John Marshall
created it in Marbury v. Madison. ·
The political views of the judge and the
jurisdiction of the case can have great impact on the verdict. The rules of the
courtroom may vary from one district to another, and the American dual court
system often leads to more than one court having authority to deliberate. ·
The U.S. Supreme Court reigns at the top of
the American court system. It is a powerful institution, revered by the
American public but as political an institution as the other two branches of
government. Politics is involved in how the Court is chosen and how it decides
a case, and in the effects of its decisions. ·
While the U.S. criminal justice system has
made progress toward a more equal dispensation of justice, minorities and poor
Americans have not always experienced equal treatment by the courts or had
equal access to them. Learning Objectives
After
reading this chapter, you should understand ·
the notion of law and the role that it plays
in democratic society in general, and in the American legal system in
particular ·
the constitutional basis for the American
judicial system ·
the dual system of state and federal courts
in the United States ·
the Supreme Court and the politics that
surround and support it ·
the relationship of citizens to the courts
in America |
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