What Court Case Gave the Supreme Court the Power of Judicial Review to the Supreme Court

Judicial Review

The Issue:  Does the Constitution Give the Supreme Courtroom the Power to Invalidate the
Actions of Other Branches of Authorities?

Introduction
In 1800 the Federalists and their candidate, President John Adams, lost the election to Thomas Jefferson.  Early in 1801 the lame-duck Federalist Congress enacted a controversial Judiciary Act that created 58 new judgeships, including 42 justiceships of the peace, for Adams to appoint.  Jefferson complained that the Federalists "take retired into the judiciary every bit a stronghold."  On the night March 3, 1801, John Marshall, acting equally secretary of land, affixed the official seal to the commissions for the justices of the peace.  He did not, yet, deliver the commissions.  The adjacent day, after Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated, he directed the new secretary of state, James Madison, to withhold delivery of 17 of the 42 commissions, including that of William Marbury.  William Marbury sued for a writ of mandamus to crave Madison to manus over his committee.
William Marbury The decision in Marbury's case, written by Chief Justice John Marshall (the very aforementioned John Marshall who affixed the seal to Marbury's committee--talk about a conflict of involvement!) established and justified the ability of judicial review.  Information technology is the start case read by virtually every offset-yr law pupil and is by and large considered the greatest of all landmark cases.  Marshall strained to reach his result.  The evidently words of Section 13 of the Judiciary Act betoken that Marbury went to the wrong court or invoked the wrong statute (or both), but Marshall proceeded equally if the suit were authorized by Section 13 then alleged the statute unconstitutional on the grounds that it purported to expand the Courtroom's original jurisdiction in violation of Article III.  Marbury'south adapt was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.  Marshall's decision--brilliant in its formulation--allowed the Courtroom to brand Jefferson a violator of civil rights without issuing an social club that the President could have ignored.

Case
Marbury vs. Madison (1803)

Fragment from John Marshall's Handwritten Conclusion

Questions

1. Is judicial review a skillful idea? Should ix unelected judges be able to tell our elected representatives what they can and cannot practise?
2. Are courts more probable to block an enlightened consensus with their adherence to outdated principles or to protect the politically weak from oppressive majorities?
3.  Are judges, protected with lifetime tenure and drawn by and large from the educated class, more likely to be cogitating and above the passing enthusiasms that drive legislative action?
four.  Does Marbury mean that legislators or members of the executive branch have no responsibleness to approximate the constitutionality of their own actions?
5.  Could nosotros accept a workable system of government without judicial review?

"The prime and most necessary function of the Court has been that of validation, not that of invalidation.  What a authorities of limited powers needs, at the beginning and forever, is some ways of satisfying the people that it has taken all steps humanly possible to stay within its powers."

--Professor Charles L. Black

Links
Marbury v. Madison Background & Players
(James Madison Univ.)

Judicial Review (Wikipedia) 1800-1809 American Events Timeline

John Marshall - Definer of a Nation

1803 Petition, Debate & Vote of Wm. Marbury & Others
(from Annals of Congress)

Pitching quoits

Q uoits, Anyone?: The Personality Differences of John Marshall and Thomas Jefferson "[John Marshall] was proud of his skills in pitching quoits--a game involving a kind of circular horseshoe--and could be observed at the Quoits Club in Richmond toward the end of his life downing Madeira and rum  punch, getting down on his hands and knees earnestly measuring the distance between his quoit and those of his opponents, and then shouting in unaffected happiness when he won.  It is difficult to imagine the withdrawn and aristocratic Jefferson in a similar posture." --Jeffrey Rosen, The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America (2006).

Chief Justice John Marshall

The Judiciary Act  (Section 13):

     The human action to institute the judicial courts of the United states of america authorizes the supreme court "to issue writs of mandamus, in cases warranted past the principles and usages of police, to any courts appointed, or persons holding office, under the potency of the Us."

Article Three of Constitution
Department. 2

     The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Police and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the The states, and Treaties made, or which shall exist fabricated, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall exist a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a Land and Citizens of another State;--between Citizens of different States; --betwixt Citizens of the same Land claiming Lands nether Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

      In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a Country shall be Political party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations every bit the Congress shall make.

Original Intent & Judicial Review

The Constitution does not expressly provide for judicial review.  What should be made of this fact?  Does it suggest that the framers did not intend to give the courts such a ability?  Not necessarily, although that is 1 caption for its absence.  Information technology is also possible that the framers idea the ability of judicial review was sufficiently clear from the structure of government that information technology need non be expressly stated.  A third possibility is that the framers didn't think that the event would ever come upward, considering Congress would never pass legislation exterior of its enumerated powers.

Only 11 of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, according to Madison's notes, expressed an opinion on the desirability of judicial review.  Of those that did so, nine generally supported the idea and 2 opposed. One consul, James Wilson, argued that the courts should have the even broader power to strike down any unjust federal or state legislation.  It may too be worth noting that over half of the thirteen original states gave their own judges some ability of judicial review.

Footnote: The Flying Fish Case Ii Views on Seizures John Adams T. Jefferson Vice President Thomas Jefferson opposed the 1799 lodge of President  Adams allowing the seizing of ships.

Many people know the first  Supreme Court conclusion to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional (Information technology'south Marbury, of course), but few people could identify the Courtroom's beginning determination declaring Executive Branch activeness to be unconstitutional. Lilliputian 5 Barreme (1804), called the Flying Fish case, involved an order by President John Adams, issued in 1799 during our brief war with French republic,  authorizing the Navy to seize ships bound for French ports.  The president's order was inconsistent with an human action of Congress declaring the regime to have no such say-so.  Subsequently a Navy Captain in December 1799 seized the Danish vessel, the Flying Fish, pursuant to Adams's order , the owners of the ship sued the captain for trespass in U. Due south. maritime court.  On entreatment, C. J. Marshall rejected the helm's statement that he could non exist sued because he was merely post-obit presidential orders.  The Court noted that commanders "human action at their own peril" when they obey invalid orders--and the president's order was outside of his powers, given the congressional action.

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Source: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/judicialrev.htm

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