8. Overview of the Federal Court System

in order to understand how the federal court system works we need to know the structure of the federal court system so let's talk about that in this video a little bit and I'll start at the very top of the federal court system with the court that you probably have already heard of and that is the United States Supreme Court the Supreme Court as you probably know the Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States it's the top court of the court system and as the top court it's job is to review the decisions of the lower courts of the courts below it so the Supreme Court review reviews the decisions of the courts that are below it and the courts that are directly below the United States Supreme Court are called the circuit courts the circuit courts and those courts are called circuit courts because the country is divided up into geographic regions called circuits we can see the circuits on this map right here the circuits are numbered the First Circuit the Second Circuit the Third Circuit etc and this map is color-coded to show you which states are included in each of the circuits so out here on the west coast just as an example all these states that are shaded this same gray blue color here they're all in the same circuit and as you might have guessed by this number nine they're all in the ninth circuit and in the middle of the country here all of these orange colored states are all part of the eighth circuit and that's the same it's the same way through the entire country so all of the circuits each circuit has a court just for that circuit and that's what I've drawn here that's what these boxes are underneath the Supreme Court so the circuits are all numbered the first circuit second circuit the third circuit fourth fifth circuit and there's a court a circuit court for each one of those circuits and the federal court system has 13 different circuits and circuit courts 13 different circuits each one having its own court the actually the the official name for the Circuit Court is the United States Court of Appeals for the name of the circuit okay so the first Circuit Court is officially called the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit where sometimes we'll call it the first Circuit Court of Appeals for short or even shorter just the first Circuit Court and it's all talking about the same Court the reason it's called the Court of Appeals is because it hears appeals it hears the appeals of the lower courts that just means that it reviews the decisions of the lower courts just like how the Supreme Court reviews the decisions of the circuit courts the circuit courts review the decisions of the courts below and the courts that are below the circuit courts are courts that we call district courts district courts the country isn't just divided up into circuits it's also divided up into even smaller segments what's called districts the districts are inside of the circuits so looking back at the Ninth Circuit for our example every state has at least one district inside of it and sometimes that district takes up the entire state so the state of Montana has one district inside of it and the district takes up that entire state and it's called very logically the district of Montana similarly Idaho is a state that has only one district inside of it that district takes up the entire state and it's called the district of Idaho but some of the more populated states have multiple districts inside of them so for example Washington is divided up into the Western District of Washington and the Eastern District of Washington is divided by this little dotted line here and even though it's there they're both in the same date the western district in the eastern district are two different districts just like how the district of Idaho is different than the district of Montana and California is even more heavily populated it's divided into the Eastern District of California the Northern District of California the Central District and the Southern District and just that the East Coast doesn't feel left out let's look out here at the Second Circuit much smaller in geographic region it includes the state of Vermont which is another state that has just one district for the entire state called the district of Vermont but New York is divided into the northern district Western District the southern district and the eastern district just like how every circuit has a circuit court just for that circuit it's the same way with the districts every district has a court just for that district and it's called the district court so remember we just saw in the second circuit that the Second Circuit included districts like the Western District of New York and the Southern District of New York and there are a few others including the district of Vermont which is a district that takes up an entire state alright and in the Ninth Circuit which we looked at before that the Ninth Circuit included the Northern District of California and the Southern District of California there were quite a few districts actually in the Ninth Circuit and the district of or again just to give another example of a district that takes up an entire state now these decisions that are made in the district court for district can be reviewed by the circuit court for the circuit that the district is inside of the Western District of New York is inside the second circuit so the decisions by the district the district court for the Western District of New York can be reviewed by the circuit court for the second sir same thing over here the Southern District of California is inside of the Ninth Circuit so that means the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit can review the decisions by the district court for the Southern District of California it's the same way with all of these numbered circuits every numbered circuit has multiple districts inside of it my I can't fit them all here so I didn't draw them I just gave you some examples but it's the same way for all of these circuits well the 12th circuit and the thirteenth circuit are are different they don't actually exist right there is a twelfth circuit in a thirteenth circuit but it's not called the twelfth circuit or the thirteenth circuit the twelfth one is called the DC Circuit the DC Circuit doesn't have a number because unlike the other ones that have multiple districts inside of them the DC Circuit only has one district inside of it that district is called the District of Columbia the district for the District of Columbia and so they just gave it the name the DC Circuit right so it can only hear appeals from one district and that's the District of Columbia and the last the last circuit I'll use a different color for that one the last circuit is unique okay see all of these circuit courts the numbered ones and the DC Circuit they review decisions based on geography they review decisions that come from districts that are inside of them the Sixth Circuit wouldn't review a decision that comes from the Northern District of California it has no business doing so because the Northern District of California is not inside the Sixth Circuit the Northern District of California would be reviewed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals but the Federal Circuit is different the Federal Circuit doesn't have any districts inside of it so how can it review anything well the federal court the Federal Circuit isn't Geographic it isn't based on geography all right it's it operates based on subject matter so certain certain special subjects like patents and trademarks certain Veterans Affairs international trade and there are a few other subjects as well but these special subjects are governed by the Federal Circuit the Federal Circuit will review decisions that come from any of the districts if they relate to these subject matters so the Southern District of California could be reviewed by the Ninth Circuit or it could be reviewed by the Federal Circuit if it's dealing with one of these issues if it's not dealing with one of these issues the Southern District of California would be reviewed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals so that's just a quick overview of the structure of the federal court system

Channel: Eugene Kim

Views: 149,676

Keywords: federal courts, structure, hierarchy, district court, circuit court, supreme court, court, explanation, explained, eugene kim

Id: i_mbk0YhLa0

Length: 9min 47sec (587 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 08 2013