Congress and the Judiciary Act of 1789
When the First Congress turned to the organization of the judicial branch, much of the debate centered on whether to establish lower federal courts or to rely on existing state courts to exercise federal jurisdiction. Advocates of a strong central government thought a national system of federal courts was an essential requirement for energetic government. Other members of Congress, recalling the colonial experience under British rule, thought that justice was best served by courts tied to local communities. Those who were suspicious of the concentration of national power wanted to grant state courts authority to hear all cases involving federal law or to limit local federal courts to admiralty and maritime law. The judiciary act approved in September 1789 established a federal court system with broad jurisdiction, but the act reserved a significant role for state courts and guaranteed that the diversity of legal traditions throughout the country would be recognized in the local federal courts.
The Judiciary Act of 1789 established three types of federal courts. The Supreme Court, with a chief justice and five associate justices, would meet twice a year in the nation’s capital and hear appeals from lower federal courts and from the state supreme courts. The Supreme Court would also exercise the limited original jurisdiction defined by the Constitution. In each state and in Kentucky and Maine (then parts of other states), a district court with a single judge would have exclusive jurisdiction to hear cases involving admiralty and maritime law and conduct trials of minor federal crimes. The district courts shared with the state courts jurisdiction over small suits brought by the United States.
The most important federal cases would be initiated in the third type of court, called circuit courts, which would convene in the same judicial districts in which the district courts met. The circuit courts had no judges of their own, but were served by two Supreme Court justices and the local district judge. (Congress soon revised the law to require only one justice on each circuit court.) Congress grouped the judicial districts into regional circuits for the purpose of assigning justices to serve on the circuit courts within that region. The circuit courts would hear some appeals from the district courts, but they were primarily trial courts. The circuit courts had exclusive jurisdiction over serious federal crimes and shared with the state courts jurisdiction over suits involving disputes above a certain monetary value, suits involving the U.S. government, and suits between citizens of different states.
Congress protected distinctive state legal traditions by drawing the judicial districts to coincide with state boundaries and by providing for the use of the respective state’s rules for most district and circuit court proceedings and for the selection of federal juries. Perhaps most important for protection of regional legal cultures, the assignment of “circuit riding” duties for Supreme Court justices ensured that the judges on the nation’s highest court would learn about local legal procedures and would interact with citizens at the point where cases entered the federal judicial system. The Judiciary Act also promoted a local orientation of the lower courts by requiring district judges to live in the district where they served. In response to widespread concerns that defendants in federal trials would be forced to appear in distant courts, the Judiciary Act required civil trials to be held in the district in which a defendant was served with a writ and trials involving the death penalty to be held in the county where the crime occurred.
I hope all this helps I am taking judicial law in school .
