Talk:Article I and Article III tribunals

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[edit] DYK nomination

I just nominated this article to be listed on the Did you know section (see Template talk:Did you know).

Did you know ... that in the United States, a federal court can be classified as either an Article I or Article III tribunal?

People will love this article! -- Toytoy 02:50, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

We're on the Main Page!
And this article is less than 16 hours old! -- Toytoy 16:48, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Relocate the Article I controversy

I propose that we relocate the Article I controversy to the end of the article. Article III courts are usually the "courts" in people's daily languages. Very few people and even lawyers ever went to an administrative court. We have to emphasis the importance of Article III courts. -- Toytoy 03:23, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Well, you're partly correct. It's true that Article III courts are the true courts both in the legal sense and in common parlance. But it's not true that few people or lawyers ever go to administrative courts. Indeed, administrative courts do much of the grunt work in the federal system and even the trial level Article III courts are almost appeals courts much of the time now. The only huge exception is criminal law, of course, where only Article III courts can exercise federal jurisdiction. CoramVobis 18:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I second editor CoramVobis on this point. For example, in Federal tax matters the United States Tax Court, an Article I court, hears far more tax cases than any Article III court. Yours, Famspear 01:23, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Patent judges

There are also several administrative patent judges at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (see interference proceeding. I think they are also Article I judges. -- Toytoy 07:24, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

  • There are administrative law judges in dozens of Federal agencies, not just the Patent Office, and they all exercise Article I authority. Russ Blau (talk) 16:03, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

ALJs actually do have life tenure though they are not article III judges. The article is confusing on this point. However the decisions of ALJs are ususally appealable to an agency appeals board which is not made up of ALJs so otherwise, the article is correct. ALJs are certainly not Article III judges. One can argue that many of them are Article II judges, but the distinction between Article I courts and Article II courts does not seem important. Esorlem 13:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger?

Perhaps we should merge this article with United States federal courts. That page is rather sparse at present, and I find the title and organization of this one rather awkward. Thoughts? Ddye 17:11, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay, since I posted the above I've gotten more ideas (which I've also cross-posted to the discussion on US federal courts). I think that while this article is young (and thus has less links to fix) we can do a more extensive reorganization of the US judicial pages. I think that United States federal courts should become a very broad introduction to the different types of courts (pretty much incorporating most of the info from this article). Then the information there about the structure of the (article III) judicial branch should be moved to a new page on the United States federal judciary (or judicial branch, etc.) which would have an overview of the three levels of courts (with links to those pages), the appeals process, etc. Finally, we could create an Article I courts page, where we'll put the controversy section, and which we can eventually expand to include a discussion of their history, purposes, procedures, etc. The existing links to US federal courts will still make sense after this change, so we'll just have to fix links to this page. So...am I crazy? Ddye 17:34, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
No, you're not crazy. I think your suggestion is a good one. Can we keep the United States federal courts article and let it absorbe this one? Afterall, United States federal courts = Article I tribunals + Article III tribunals. It is logical to use "United States federal courts" as the article's title. -- Toytoy 17:39, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
You're right, I think I got a little carried away in my desire to structure things. For now we should just move the information on this page to United States federal courts and integrate it there. If that page ever starts to fill up, then we can consider seperate Article I and Article III pages. Ddye 17:46, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I see where you're thinking is headed - one big article that holistically describes the relationship between all of the various branches of the federal courts... we'll need a chart (we can probably find a pd sample on some U.S. gov't website), and perhaps a sidebar template to link together the different articles on individual types of federal courts. -- BD2412 talk 18:08, 2005 Jun 24 (UTC)

[edit] What About the Foreign Intelligence Surveillence Court?

In all this discussion, I see no mention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC} which is responsible for considering surveillance & physical search orders from the Dept. of Justice & US intelligence agencies. I don't even know if there's a Wikipedia article on the existence of this Court . . .

A Google search for "court foreign intelligence" will turn up a number of hits, including an "Ask Yahoo!" item dealing with this Court.

As far as I know, these "adm. law judges" are government employees. They only became "judges" since 1970s or 1980s. These "judges" are not independant. Their decisions have to be reviewed by their agencies. I really don't know if we should call them judges. -- Toytoy 15:14, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
if you read some of the articles available via a Google search, you'll find that the judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillence Court are Article III judges. -- tharkun860 June 29, 2005 05:22 (UTC)
If they have lifetime appointments and irreduceable salaries, they are by definition Art. III. BD2412 T 02:15, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

FISA is not an Article III tribunal. 66.171.197.20 20:54, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

  • The 7-year term means they are an Article I tribunal.—Markles 12:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Except that, according to Glidden Company v. Zdanok 370 U.S. 530 (1962), Article III judges can only be assigned to Article III courts. (See section VI-B of the opinion of the court.) — DLJessup (talk) 14:29, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
      • That's a good point. Their job tenure is lifetime, even if their tenure on this court is limited. Thus, I concur that this is an Article III court.—Markles 21:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Military COAs

I just came across a couple of orphan pages for the military COAs. I'm not sure where to put them, but they need to be wikified.

Mneumisi 12:59, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article II Tribunals

In the same vein, we should probably include an item here somewhere for Article II tribunals such as courts martial -- while some fall neatly into the Article I category (legislatively created -- such as the Article II tribunals reconstituted as Article I tribunals after Congress passed the Military Commissions Act to deal with Guantanamo), some do not (inherently created by the executive using Article II commander-in-chief powers). While the legal status of such tribunals is up in the air, the recent Guantanamo detainee cases have made such tribunals a live controversy. 71.63.19.244 02:43, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Another Article II court is the High Court of American Samoa. This is the trial and appeals court for the territory of American Samoa, but it is not an Article I court (as other territorial courts are) because it was not established pursuant to an Act of Congress. It was created originally by the Department of the Navy (who administered AS after cession in 1901, not the Secretary of Interior administers it). Appeals lie from the High Court to the Secretary of the Interior, who in practice does not exercise his appellate authority. Final judgments can be reviewed in the DC district court under the Administrative Procedures Act, but only for violations of the Constitution or the Federal statutes, not for violations of AS law. Manojb 08:39, 18 September 2007 (UTC)