Notes 3-20-14

• The inferior courts were created to function beneath the Supreme Court to handle most of the cases tried in the federal court.
• 677 judges handle more than 350,000 cases per year- 80% of the federal caseload.
• There are 94 district courts
• FISA stands for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court- meet in secret and are entitled to secret search warrants.
• If you are an alien terrorist it means you are a terrorist from another country.
• District courts hear both criminal and civil cases.
• Civil cases are people suing one another and businesses while criminal cases deal with crime against one another.
• A few of the cases go to higher courts if losing parties appeal the ruling.
• Each district has a court of appeals (12) plus 1 court for the Federal Circuit.
• Normally 3-judge panels.
• A federal trial court- only tries civil cases that arise out of the nation's customs and other trade related laws.