Constitution 1, Patriot Act 0

[rev_tobias]

According to this CBS story, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional.

[Judge Aiken] said that by asking her to dismiss Mayfield's lawsuit, the U.S. Attorney General's office was "asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation what would deprive it

Comments

[rev_tobias]

There are a ton of federal districts around the country, so one ruling isn't a big deal, honestly.

Okay, this is the part I don't get. Please explain. I thought anything "federal" means "applicable across state borders throughout the US". So a Federal Court does not speak for the whole Federal Judicative bus just for a certain (I surmise geographcally defined) part of it? Is SCOTUS the only court in the US whose rulings really apply to all of the USA?

You see, in Germany, anything on the Federal level (or "Bundes-"whatever) automatically overrules its state level ("Landes-") counterpart. So if a Landesgericht, or State Court, in Germany, made a decision like this, it would - if challenged - escalate to a Bundesgericht (Federal Court) and from there to the Bundesverfassungsgericht ("Constitution Court", a special court whose job is to ensure that the constitution is upheld above anything else - I think (but am not 100% sure) this is the job of SCOTUS in the USA?).

Yeah, I could probably google all this, but I'd rather have someone familiar with the terminology explain it to me in layman's terms instead of having to wade through a dozen pages of legalese.

And if the Circuit decides to reverse the decision, is this binding or can it be challenged at the next higher level (which I suppose would be SCOTUS)?

[dreagoddess]

You're kind of right. :) Basically, we have a dual system, with the federal and state courts each being supreme in their own ways. Federal courts can't interfere in state law unless it impacts with the US constitution. (Which this does, since it declared a law unconstitutional.) So the state court can't just say, "Nope, we disagree, it's constitutional."

BUT we're set up for a lot of local control. There are federal district courts all over the country, usually several per state. They're trial courts, where you'll have juries and witnesses and all that good stuff. It's the first stop in the federal system. When a federal district court makes a decision, it only applies to that district. So Oregon is bound by it, but in Texas it doesn't matter a bit, because that's not our district.

Above the district court is the circuit court, which is an appellate court. They don't hear any evidence or decide facts, they just decide pure questions of law. The circuit courts preside over a bunch of district courts each. When a circuit court makes a decision, it's binding over every district court in its circuit. So when the 9th Circuit rules on this, it won't apply just to Oregon, but to every other state in the 9th Circuit.

Then above that is the Supreme Court. They preside over the entire country, so all the circuit courts are bound by its decisions.

[rev_tobias]

Thanks, that makes it a lot clearer. :)