Great question; I am glad you asked. As previously stated, I am super passionate about this unit. So, let's peel those beautiful crimson drapes back and get into it. In looking at the creation of the courts, I draw two distinct parallels. The courts are OOAK (one of a kind) and not so much. Why the courts are OOAK:
Why not so much:
I then get into the distinction between Title III and Title I courts, as well as courts of original jurisdiction and appellate jurisdiction. Primarily, Article III courts are those that created in Article III of the Constitution, naturally. They tend to have a generic docket that hears all court cases under federal jurisdiction. There is one court created by the Constitution (the Supreme Court), as well as one class of jurists (Supreme Court Judges). The rest of the courts are created under statute (most notably the Judiciary Act of 1789) Article I courts are created by Congress under Constitutional authority, specifically Article I Section 8 Clause 9. There are several types of courts who are crafted pursuant to the powers in the Article I: tax courts, regulation of territories and DC, and military courts. (And to make it even more complex, consider the over 4,000 executive adjudicators who work in varying degrees of independence, though never full independence, from the executive. The Supreme Court can and does review their decisions, as in the case NLRB v Canning.) Here is a great resource for use to explain this... From this point, we discuss the lovely world of judicial activism vs judicial restraint. I don't belabor the various subgroupings like textualists, originalists, etc... we just get a general understanding of reading into a decision with the desire to write rulings that either live within the text of the Constitution or broadly interpret the Constitution.
I have a worksheet that covers this in a nutshell, and even has a great video link from Annenberg that pairs Justice Scalia up with Justice Breyer in a head to head debate over the merits of each interpretation. (Up on TPT). For an even MORE in-depth review of the various philosophies, try the first chapter in Scalia Dissents. It is succinct and has an appropriate treatment for the content. And, it is pretty humorous. Actually, the whole book is hilarious, but that is for another day.
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Jen's bookshelf: nerdcation
I want to start by thanking Mr. Snowden and Mr. Greenwald for their uncompromising dedication to giving the NSA violations air time and transparency.
I wanted to share some of the most important things I have learned from this book bef...
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nerdcation
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
AuthorI lovgov. LOVE IT! I love teaching government, learning about it, debating, discussing, asking questions about government. And not the standard boiler plate questions, but the hard ones that are NOT in the books. Archives
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