|
The United States courts of appeals (or circuit courts) are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system. A court of appeals decides appeals from the district courts within its federal judicial circuit, and in some instances from other designated federal courts and administrative agencies. The United States courts of appeals are considered among the most powerful and influential courts in the United States. Because of their ability to set legal precedent in regions that cover millions of Americans, the United States courts of appeals have strong policy influence on U.S. law. Moreover, because the U.S. Supreme Court chooses to review less than 1% of the more than 10,000 cases filed with it annually, the United States courts of appeals serve as the final arbiter on most federal cases. The Ninth Circuit in particular is very influential, covering 20% of the American population. There are currently 179 judges on the United States courts of appeals authorized by Congress and Article III of the U.S. Constitution. These judges are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate. They have lifetime tenure, earning an annual salary of $213,300.〔http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-compensation〕 There are thirteen United States courts of appeals, although there are other tribunals that have "Court of Appeals" in their titles, such as the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, which hears appeals in court-martial cases, and the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, which reviews final decisions by the Board of Veterans' Appeals in the Department of Veterans Affairs. The eleven numbered circuits and the D.C. Circuit are geographically defined. The thirteenth court of appeals is the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has nationwide jurisdiction over certain appeals based on their subject matter. All of the courts of appeals also hear appeals from some administrative agency decisions and rulemaking, with by far the largest share of these cases heard by the D.C. Circuit. The Federal Circuit hears appeals from specialized trial courts, primarily the United States Court of International Trade and the United States Court of Federal Claims, as well as appeals from the district courts in patent cases and certain other specialized matters. Decisions of the United States courts of appeals have been published by the private company West Publishing in the ''Federal Reporter'' series since the courts were established. Only decisions that the courts designate for publication are included. The "unpublished" opinions (of all but the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits) are published separately in West's ''Federal Appendix'', and they are also available in on-line databases like LexisNexis or Westlaw. More recently, court decisions are also available electronically on the official court websites. However, there are also a few federal court decisions that are classified for national security reasons. The circuit with the smallest number of appellate judges is the First Circuit, and the one with the largest number of appellate judges is the geographically-large and populous Ninth Circuit in the Far West. The number of judges that the U.S. Congress has authorized for each circuit is set forth by law in , while the places where those judges must regularly sit to hear appeals are prescribed in . Although the courts of appeals are frequently referred to as ''circuit courts'', they should not be confused with the former United States circuit courts, which were active from 1789 to 1911, during the time when long-distance transportation was much less available, and which were primarily first-level federal trial courts that moved periodically from place to place in "circuits" in order to serve the dispersed population in towns and the smaller cities that existed then. The current "courts of appeal" system was established in the Judiciary Act of 1891, also known as the Evarts Act.〔(The U.S. Courts of Appeals and the Federal Judiciary ), ''History of the Federal Judiciary'', Federal Judicial Center (last visited March 5, 2014).〕 ==Procedure== Trials, at which witnesses and other evidence are presented to a jury or judge in order to determine the truth or facts regarding a particular case, are held only in courts with original jurisdiction, i.e., courts in which a lawsuit is originally (and properly) filed and which have the power to accept evidence from witnesses and make factual and legal determinations regarding the evidence presented. Such trial courts also determine punishments (in criminal cases) and remedies (in civil cases). Because the courts of appeals possess only appellate jurisdiction, they do not hold trials. Instead, appeals courts review decisions of trial courts for errors of law. Accordingly, an appeals court considers only the record (that is, the papers the parties filed and the transcripts and any exhibits from any trial) from the trial court, and the legal arguments of the parties. These arguments, which are presented in written form, and can range in length from dozens to hundreds of pages and are known as briefs. Sometimes lawyers are permitted to add to their written briefs with oral arguments before the appeals judges. At such hearings, only the parties' lawyers speak to the court. The rules that govern the procedure in the courts of appeals are the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. In a court of appeals, an appeal is almost always heard by a "panel" of three judges who are randomly selected from the available judges (including senior judges and judges temporarily assigned to the circuit). Some cases, however, receive an ''en banc'' hearing. Except in the Ninth Circuit Courts, the ''en banc'' court consists of all of the circuit judges who are on active status, but it does not include the senior or assigned judges (except that under some circumstances, a senior judge may participate in an en banc hearing when he or she participated at an earlier stage of the same case). Many decades ago, certain classes of federal court cases held the right of an automatic appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. That is, one of the parties in the case could appeal a decision of a court of appeals to the Supreme Court, and it had to accept the case. The right of automatic appeal for most types of decisions of a court of appeals was ended by an Act of Congress, the Judiciary Act of 1925. This law was urged by Chief Justice William Howard Taft, and it also reorganized many other things in the federal court system. The current procedure is that a party in a case may apply to the Supreme Court to review a ruling of the circuit court. This is called petitioning for a writ of certiorari, and the Supreme Court may choose, in its sole discretion, to review any lower court ruling. In extremely rare cases, the Supreme Court may grant the writ of certiorari before the judgment is rendered by the court of appeals, thereby reviewing the lower court's ruling directly. Certiorari before judgment was granted in the Watergate scandal-related case, ''United States v. Nixon'',〔''United States v. Nixon'', 〕 and in the 2005 decision involving the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, ''United States v. Booker''.〔''United States v. Booker'', 〕 A court of appeals may also pose questions to the Supreme Court for a ruling in the midst of reviewing a case. This procedure was formerly used somewhat commonly, but now it is quite rare. The Second Circuit, sitting ''en banc'', attempted to use this procedure in the case ''United States v. Penaranda'', as a result of the Supreme Court's decision in ''Blakely v. Washington'',〔''Blakely v. Washington'', 〕 but the Supreme Court dismissed the question after resolving the same issue in another case, which had come before the Court through the standard procedure. The last instance of the Supreme Court accepting a set of questions and answering them was in a case in 1982. A court of appeals may convene a Bankruptcy Appellate Panel to hear appeals in bankruptcy cases directly from the bankruptcy court of its circuit. , only the First, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits have established a Bankruptcy Appellate Panel. Those circuits that do not have a Bankruptcy Appellate Panel have their bankruptcy appeals heard by the District Court. Courts of appeals decisions, unlike those of the lower federal courts, establish binding precedents. Other federal courts in that circuit must, from that point forward, follow the appeals court's guidance in similar cases, regardless of whether the trial judge thinks that the case should be decided differently. Federal and state laws can and do change from time to time, depending on the actions of Congress and the state legislatures. Therefore, the law that exists at the time of the appeal might be different from the law that existed at the time of the events that are in controversy under civil or criminal law in the case at hand. A court of appeals applies the law as it exists at the time of the appeal; otherwise, it would be handing down decisions that would be instantly obsolete, and this would be a waste of time and resources, since such decisions could not be cited as precedent. "() court is to apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision, unless doing so would result in manifest injustice, or there is statutory direction or some legislative history to the contrary."〔''Bradley v. Richmond Sch. Bd.'', 416 U.S. 696, 711-12 (1974)〕 However, the above rule cannot apply in criminal cases if the effect of applying the newer law would be to create an ''ex post facto'' law to the detriment of the defendant. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「United States courts of appeals」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|