The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of U.S. Constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party." The court holds the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law. However, it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction. The court may decide cases having political overtones, but has ruled that it does not have power to decide non-justiciable political questions.
David Hackett Souter is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1990 until his retirement in 2009. Appointed by President George H. W. Bush to fill the seat that had been vacated by William J. Brennan Jr., Souter sat on both the Rehnquist and the Roberts courts.
Executive privilege is the right of the president of the United States and other members of the executive branch to maintain confidential communications under certain circumstances within the executive branch and to resist some subpoenas and other oversight by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of particular information or personnel relating to those confidential communications. The right comes into effect when revealing the information would impair governmental functions. Neither executive privilege nor the oversight power of Congress is explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution. However, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that executive privilege and congressional oversight each are a consequence of the doctrine of the separation of powers, derived from the supremacy of each branch in its area of constitutional activity.
The Privileges or Immunities Clause is Amendment XIV, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution. Along with the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment, this clause became part of the Constitution on July 9, 1868.
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure are the procedural rules that govern how federal criminal prosecutions are conducted in United States district courts and the general trial courts of the U.S. government. They are the companion to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The admissibility and use of evidence in criminal proceedings is governed by the separate Federal Rules of Evidence.
The Administrative Law, Process and Procedure Project is a bipartisan undertaking of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress. It consists of a comprehensive study of the state of administrative law, process and procedure in the United States. A description of the Project was included in the Judiciary Committee's Oversight Plan for the 109th Congress, as approved by the Committee on January 26, 2005. The Project will culminate with the preparation of a detailed report with recommendations for legislative proposals and suggested areas for further research and analysis to be considered by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS). House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) and Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI) requested the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to assist Representative Chris Cannon (R-UT), the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law (CAL), in conducting the Project.
Goler Teal Butcher was a lawyer, scholar, advocate, and professor in the field of international law.
Schlesinger v. Holtzman, 414 U.S. 1321 (1973), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the Constitution's War Powers Clause. The Court reversed a ruling by Justice William O. Douglas ordering the military to stop bombing Cambodia.
On May 26, 2009, President Barack Obama announced his selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to replace retiring Justice David Souter. Sotomayor's nomination was submitted to the United States Senate on June 1, 2009, when the 111th Congress reconvened after its Memorial Day recess. Sotomayor was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 6, 2009 by a 68–31 vote, and was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts on August 8, 2009, becoming the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court.
The nomination and confirmation of justices to the Supreme Court of the United States involves several steps, the framework for which is set forth in the United States Constitution. Specifically, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, provides that the president of the United States nominates a justice and that the United States Senate provides advice and consent before the person is formally appointed to the Court. It also empowers a president to temporarily, under certain circumstances, fill a Supreme Court vacancy by means of a recess appointment. The Constitution does not set any qualifications for service as a justice, thus the president may nominate any individual to serve on the Court.
Stephen P. Halbrook is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and an author and lawyer known for his litigation on cases involving laws pertaining to firearms. He has written extensively about the original meanings of the Second Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment. He has argued and won three cases before the US Supreme Court: Printz v. United States, United States v. Thompson-Center Arms Company, and Castillo v. United States. He has also written briefs in many other cases, including the Supreme Court cases Small v. United States and McDonald v. Chicago. In District of Columbia v. Heller, he wrote a brief on behalf of the majority of both houses of Congress. He has written many books and articles on the topic of gun control, some of which have been cited in Supreme Court opinions. He has testified before congress on multiple occasions. Halbrook's most popular book is That Every Man Be Armed, originally published in 1986. The book is an analysis of the legal history and original intent of the Second Amendment.
Michael J. Gerhardt is the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill. He is also the director of the Center on Law and Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is an expert on constitutional law, separation of powers, and the legislative process. He is a Scholar in Residence at the National Constitution Center and visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. On December 2, 2019, it was announced that Gerhardt would testify before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment in the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump.
The Printing Act of 1895, was a law designed to centralize in the United States Government Printing Office the printing, binding, and distribution of U.S. Government documents. The Act revised public printing laws and established the roles of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and the Government Printing Office (GPO) in distributing government information. The act also assigned leadership of the program to the Superintendent of Public Documents, who would be under the control of the GPO,
Patrick Robert Wyrick is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma and a former Associate Justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Michael Hun Park is an American lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act of 2018 (AVAA) is a United States federal law that changes how federal courts determine the amount of restitution victims of child pornography offenses receive. The AVAA responds to the United States Supreme Court's call on Congress to clarify the meaning of the restitution statute. It aims to create an effective system suited for the unique nature of child pornography crimes. It is codified in various sections of Title 18 and Title 34 of the United States Code. The primary section is 18 U.S.C. § 2259. The act became law on December 7, 2018.
In the United States, federal impeachment is the process by which the House of Representatives charges the president, vice president, or a civil federal officer for alleged misconduct. The House can impeach an individual with a simple majority of the present members or other criteria adopted by the House according to Article One, Section 2, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution. Similarly, state and territorial officials, such as a governor, can be impeached and tried by their respective legislatures according to their constitutions. In Washington, D.C., elected officials, except the District's delegate to the Congress, are removed in a recall election instead of through an impeachment process.
