This activity is part of Module 9: The Judicial System and Current Cases from the Constitution 101 Curriculum.
It is important to remember that Article III is a very short provision and doesn’t lay out many details about the Supreme Court and how it works—or even what the federal judiciary as a whole should look like. For example, it doesn’t set the number of Supreme Court justices, how many lower-court judges there should be in the federal judiciary, or when we should have any lower federal courts below the Supreme Court at all.
Furthermore, Article III can be a bit hard to understand without some background first. The basic ideas are simple enough, but the language is a bit more technical than other parts of the Constitution. In this activity, you will review the key terms of the module to help deepen your understanding of Article III.
In this activity, you will review the key terms of the module to help deepen your understanding of Article III. For each term, paraphrase it (describe each term in your own words) and give an example that highlights each term (either from the Constitution or a Supreme Court case that you've learned about).
- Judicial Review
- Definition: The power to review the constitutionality of acts of the national and state governments.
- Judicial Supremacy
- Definition: The idea that the Supreme Court is the final voice on the Constitution’s meaning. (Many scholars, lawyers, and judges debate this concept and whether it is a good idea.)
- Judicial Independence
- Definition: The idea that the federal courts must be independent from the control of the other branches of government.
- Majority Opinion
- Definition: The opinion in a case that has the support of a majority of the justices.
- Dissenting Opinion
- Definition: An opinion in a case explaining why a justice disagrees with the majority opinion and why they would decide the case differently.
- Concurring Opinion
- Definition: An opinion from a justice who agrees with the majority on who should win the case, but offers some additional thoughts on how to think about the constitutional issue in the case.
- Writ of Certiorari
- Definition: When four of the nine justices decide to take a case, they will issue a writ of certiorari.
- Docket
- Definition: The list of cases the Court will hear in a term.
- Advice and Consent
- Definition: The Senate’s power to approve or reject the president’s nominees, including to the Supreme Court.
