District judges are full-time judges who deal with the majority of cases in the county courts. They are assigned on appointment to a particular circuit and may sit at any of the county courts or district registries of the High Court on that circuit.
A district registry is part of the High Court situated in various districts of England and Wales, dealing with High Court family and civil business.
District registries are often co-located at county courts, when the district judges sitting there will case-manage High Court cases. A full-time magistrate judge serves a term of eight years. Duties assigned to magistrate judges by district court judges may vary considerably from court to court.
Who appoints federal judges? How are new judgeships created? What are the qualifications for becoming a federal judge? How is a chief judge selected? What is a senior judge?
What are bankruptcy judges? In criminal matters, magistrate judges may oversee certain cases, issue search warrants and arrest warrants, conduct initial hearings, set bail, decide certain motions such as a motion to suppress evidence , and other similar actions.
In civil cases, magistrates often handle a variety of issues such as pre-trial motions and discovery. Federal trial courts have also been established for a few subject-specific areas. Each federal district also has a bankruptcy court for those proceedings. Once the federal district court has decided a case, the case can be appealed to a United States court of appeal. There are twelve federal circuits that divide the country into different regions.
Cases from the district courts of those states are appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Additionally, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has a nationwide jurisdiction over very specific issues such as patents. Each circuit court has multiple judges, ranging from six on the First Circuit to twenty-nine on the Ninth Circuit.
Circuit court judges are appointed for life by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Appeals to circuit courts are first heard by a panel, consisting of three circuit court judges. En banc opinions tend to carry more weight and are usually decided only after a panel has first heard the case. Beyond the Federal Circuit, a few courts have been established to deal with appeals on specific subjects such as veterans claims United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims and military matters United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the American judicial system, and has the power to decide appeals on all cases brought in federal court or those brought in state court but dealing with federal law.
For example, if a First Amendment freedom of speech case was decided by the highest court of a state usually the state supreme court , the case could be appealed to the federal Supreme Court. This means that the courts do not issue advisory opinions on the constitutionality of laws or the legality of actions if the ruling would have no practical effect.
Cases brought before the judiciary typically proceed from district court to appellate court and may even end at the Supreme Court, although the Supreme Court hears comparatively few cases each year.
Federal courts enjoy the sole power to interpret the law, determine the constitutionality of the law, and apply it to individual cases. The courts, like Congress, can compel the production of evidence and testimony through the use of a subpoena. The inferior courts are constrained by the decisions of the Supreme Court — once the Supreme Court interprets a law, inferior courts must apply the Supreme Court's interpretation to the facts of a particular case.
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the land and the only part of the federal judiciary specifically required by the Constitution. The Constitution does not stipulate the number of Supreme Court Justices; the number is set instead by Congress.
There have been as few as six, but since there have been nine Justices, including one Chief Justice. All Justices are nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and hold their offices under life tenure. Since Justices do not have to run or campaign for re-election, they are thought to be insulated from political pressure when deciding cases. Justices may remain in office until they resign, pass away, or are impeached and convicted by Congress. The Court's caseload is almost entirely appellate in nature, and the Court's decisions cannot be appealed to any authority, as it is the final judicial arbiter in the United States on matters of federal law.
However, the Court may consider appeals from the highest state courts or from federal appellate courts. The Court also has original jurisdiction in cases involving ambassadors and other diplomats, and in cases between states. Although the Supreme Court may hear an appeal on any question of law provided it has jurisdiction, it usually does not hold trials. Instead, the Court's task is to interpret the meaning of a law, to decide whether a law is relevant to a particular set of facts, or to rule on how a law should be applied.
Lower courts are obligated to follow the precedent set by the Supreme Court when rendering decisions.
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