Quotes About Article III

I am a proud Article III judge. We've been criticized from the beginning of this great country. What I will say about me and my colleagues is it doesn't matter to us.

Let me frame the issue for you—does the active sex life of an unmarried federal judge qualify as impeachable conduct within the meaning of Article III of the U.S. Constitution?

Although the delegates appear to have assumed that the federal courts would exercise some form of judicial review over federal and state laws, Article III says nothing explicit on the subject. It states in broad terms that the federal courts' judicial power "shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties.

For the Supreme Court specifically, Article III makes a distinction between "original" and "appellate" jurisdiction—between the Supreme Court as a court of first resort for cases involving states or foreign diplomats, and the Court as the recipient of appeals from lower courts in all other cases.

Once the Constitution was ratified, Congress quickly turned to the task of setting up a court system within the Article III framework. The Judiciary Act of 1789, often called the First Judiciary Act, established two tiers of lower courts: thirteen district courts that followed state lines, each with its own district judge, and three circuit courts, for the Eastern, Middle, and Southern Circuits.

Even today, the contours of what is often referred to as the "Article III jurisdiction" of the federal courts remain contested. The important points here are simply these: that questions concerning the federal courts' jurisdiction are anchored deeply in the nation's constitutional origins, and that the Supreme Court itself has provided the answers.

The case was a suit by a merchant in South Carolina against the state of Georgia for a Revolutionary War debt. The plaintiff sued directly in the Supreme Court under the provision of Article III that gave the Court jurisdiction over suits between a state and a citizen of a different state. The Court rejected Georgia's argument that as a sovereign state it was immune from suit without its consent. When Georgia refused to appear, the Court entered a default judgment against it.

The interest of a parent in the life of his child has all the requisite specificity and intensity that could possibly be required of a "case" or "controversy" under Article III.