The Federal Judiciary

Article III is the shortest of the three branch articles. It creates one Supreme Court, leaves every other federal court to Congress, and protects judges with two guarantees: they hold office during good behavior, which has come to mean for life, and their pay cannot be cut while they serve. Congress filled in the rest with the Judiciary Act of 1789, signed on September 24 of that year, which set the Supreme Court at six justices and built a lower tier of district and circuit courts. The basic three-level shape has survived, though every level has been reorganized since.

Today the judicial branch runs on three tiers. Ninety-four district courts hold the trials, civil and criminal, in every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and three territories. Thirteen courts of appeals review the district courts' decisions, twelve by geographic circuit and one, the Federal Circuit, by subject matter. Above them sits the Supreme Court, which chooses the few dozen cases a year it will hear. Alongside these Article III courts are specialized tribunals created under Article I, such as the Tax Court and the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, whose judges serve fixed terms rather than for life.

Roughly 870 judgeships carry Article III protection. Every one is filled the same way: nomination by the President, confirmation by the Senate, and removal only by impeachment, which has happened to fifteen judges in the nation's history. The branch governs itself through the Judicial Conference of the United States, chaired by the Chief Justice, which sets policy, and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which handles budgets, buildings, and staff. The Federal Judicial Center provides research and training. The whole branch costs about nine billion dollars a year, a fraction of one percent of federal spending.

The judiciary's authority rests on a power the Constitution never names. Judicial review, the ability to strike down acts of Congress and the President as unconstitutional, was asserted by the Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison in 1803 and has been accepted, if not always welcomed, ever since. That power, combined with life tenure, makes the federal courts the least democratic branch and, their defenders argue, the one most able to protect rights against majorities. Debates over court packing, term limits for justices, the reach of nationwide injunctions, and the ethics rules that bind judges all turn on how much independence the third branch should have.