What is the role of the judicial branch of government?*?

Answer 1

The purpose of the Judicial System is to interpret the laws and decide how they should be applied. They also refine the laws with the use of legal precedent. The Legislature passes those laws and the Executive branch is responsible for enforcing those laws.

Laws set something down in the legal record, but how it is interpreted by the courts determines how useful the law is and what power and jurisdiction it has.

The states set up their own courts for civil and criminal cases. Federal courts only deal with federal crimes. Murder isn't enough to get a case into federal court, even mass murder. But, when a murder travels across state lines, becoming a threat to more than one state then federal jurisdiction applies.

Laws are made in 3 ways; the first is with the Federal Constitution and any amendments made to it; the second is with the laws passed by Congress and the State Legislatures; the third way is with judicial precedent. When a judge makes a ruling on a case then that ruling (if held up on appeal) becomes the way that similar cases are to be handled.

When a state court makes a ruling then that ruling sets a precedent; all other similar cases will be judged based on that precedent. This is the longest lasting influence of a court and it can affect courts in other states and even other nations. Precedents lead the way. A most of American law is based on English Common Law; and legal precedents set most of that law.

In Texas the state constitution says that it is illegal to carry wire cutters in your back pocket. This law was written in the age of the Wild West as a response to the Range Wars (when Billy the Kid became famous). The use of wire cutters to cut wire that held cattle, controlled water routes, or controlled the cattle drive routes north to market was a very volatile issue. Back then almost every adult male carried a firearm; the wire cutters were the dangerous weapons, and they had little other use. Now days wire cutters can be useful in the electrical trades, and firearms are the dangerous weapons so the Texas courts interpreted the law to say that it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon. Attempts to modify the Texas State Constitution met in failure, it was just too important of a document to revise with all the political arguments, deals and special interests involved. So the constitution had to be liberally interpreted for it to work. Since then laws have been passed to cover specific Constitutional issues, but they only travel the ground that the courts first laid down.

The Supreme Court has two primary jobs. To be the court for impeachment hearings and to interpret the laws of the land as they have to do with the Constitution. They only deal with Constitutional law, but laws of such importance that they can revolutionize our society.

Abortion is not mentioned in the Federal or any State Constitution, but with the ruling made in the landmark case of Roe vs. Wade abortion was made legal in the US. With the use of precedent the Supreme Court in effect enacted a law.

The Miranda Rights are a protection of our freedoms that the Supreme Court has enacted to insure the freedoms on the Bill of Rights are indeed granted to the people. Our laws make a lawyer available, in a criminal case, for free to anyone who asked, but quite a few people did not know they had that right, nor that they had the right to not answer any questions until they obtained the advice of a lawyer. It took a Supreme Court case to make those legal rights something that the police had to inform people they arrested had. What good was the legal right if no one knew they even had that right? The Supreme Court remedied that problem.

During the Civil Rights Era many state courts dismissed cases against those who persecuted blacks. By the law of double jeopardy the federal courts could not change those verdicts. However, they were allowed to file a case based on the violation of a person's civil rights. This had to be tested in the Supreme Court before it became a valid legal argument, and it allowed the Federal Government to right some wrongs done in the Deep South.

The 27th amendment was made to hold Congress responsible for any pay raises it voted itself. The law requires that an election of the House of Representatives has to be held before the pay raise takes effect. This gets the people a chance to register their approval or disapproval of that pay raise. However, Congress has snuck in a way to make that law invalid. The Supreme Court ruled that cost of living increases are not subject to this law. So Congress votes itself cost of living raises, of any amount, and are not held responsible to the people for doing this. The cost of living raise often takes effect on the first of the year and it is hidden in the Congressman Agenda or buried as an “earmark” in some other bill. Thus totally violating the spirit of the law. Congress couldn’t have done this without the Supreme Court precedent.

Often laws hold a wide range of punishment; from a fine to probation to a prison sentence to death. This range is needed so that the judge can weigh each case and decide what penalties fit the crime. One frequent sentence that a judge gives out for minor crimes is community service. When vandals make a mess of something then they are often required to clean up that mess. But, if those vandals were KKK members who disgraced a black church then the penalty would be harsher.

The penalty for spousal abuse is not a very large one. The TV show 20/20 on ABC profiled a case that has now become a teaching case for police officers to understand spousal abuse. A woman was abused by her spouse, most of it was verbal, but it quickly escalated to physical. The wife and mother was made to feel horrible as her husband made her the scapegoat of anything that went wrong in the family. He started beating her and when she showed up to work her boss began to notice signs of this abuse. She started to log the type of abuse and on what day it happened. The final straw was when the husband made one of his sons videotape a session where he abused his wife. The scene got so bad that at one point her son moved the camera away, and you only hear the impacts on the abused woman.

This controlling, troubled spouse set a horrible example for his children and with his sly destruction of his wife’s self esteem was dividing and destroying the family. When the woman finally had the courage to leave her husband and take him to court. He laughed at her, he said that his children would never testify against him and the court would not believe his wife. When the videotape was introduced then the case started to take shape. Then when the woman’s boss showed her calendar chronicling the abuse over 2 years the judge found the abusive man guilty. Instead of a typical 3-5 year term the judge sentenced the man to 20 years. One year for each case of documented abuse. In this extreme case the judge used an extreme penalty to deal with a man who was a “clear and present danger.”

Killing someone is illegal even if you didn’t mean to do it. This is called involuntary manslaughter. In a case where a man has a traffic accident and a member of his family is killed then he can be accused of involuntary manslaughter and arrested. If the case is truly an accident then the man was not at fault and the added stress of this accusation would only increase his grief and guilty feelings. Most prosecutors won’t even file a case in this example. They can do this because the precedent has been sent that a judge would throw out that kind of case. In fact once this precedent was made it has been honored in Great Britain and throughout the US.

When the laws take away a judge’s freedom to level a sentence in a case then problems result. In an effort to fight crime Congress has mandated that a mandatory 20-year sentence be applied. This is filling up our jails and prisons. In Texas it has helped create over crowding. In some cases violent offenders serving lesser terms are released early to make room for drug offenders. If a person is caught with drugs in their possession then they have to be sentenced to 20 years hard time. Even if it is a case where a passenger stowed drugs in the car of an unsuspecting driver who is his friend. The passenger is going to deny that the drugs are his, as will the passenger. When the case comes to trial then the judge’s freedom of sentencing is compromised. If the driver was a promising student with a clean record and the passenger had a drug conviction then the drugs probably belonged to the passenger. However, in a case of “he said, he said” it would be hard to make a decision. Formerly a judge had the freedom to give the driver a minimum sentence with probation, but now he is forced to give the driver a sentence similar to the passenger who was a known drug user. This will destroy that driver’s career and his life.

Lawmakers determine the laws, set new ones, and assign the parameters of those laws. Once these are set then it is left to the judicial system to take if from there. Judges set the precedent with legal ruling and each court case made. Judges use the sentencing guidelines to punish the crime in a fashion that it should be punished. They can be lenient or they can be tough. They can give a person a second chance with probation or they can send a three strike habitual felon away for a long time.

Answer 2

the role of the judicial branch of government is to decide if laws abide to the Constitution. they are also the head of the Supreme Court(highest court in the nation).

Answer 3

To interpret the law

Answer 4

To interpret law.

Answer 5

To settle disputes according to law.