Question

Holly Burton, a state circuit court judge, noted in conversation with her nephew that the number of opinions turned out by the United States Supreme Court (USSC) decided but a small percentage of the cases that were qualified to be resolved by the nation’s highest legal authority. For the 2008 term, for example, they only produced 83 full opinions out of more than 10,000 that sought review and were placed on the court’s docket. Her nephew, a political science major in college, then mentioned that Congress might soon provide some help by installing a court between the Federal Courts of Appeals and the USSC. Judge Burton replied, “Congress can’t do that. It takes a Constitutional amendment to change the federal court structure.” “That is not true,” said her nephew

who's correct? how so?

Answer 1

The nephew is correct. Congress has the power to create and abolish lower federal courts, and it can also create an intermediate court of appeals between the district courts and the Supreme Court. This has been done in the past, and there are currently 13 circuit courts of appeals that sit below the Supreme Court. While it is true that amending the Constitution is required to make certain changes to the structure of the federal courts, such as altering the size or jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, creating an intermediate court of appeals is not one of them.