As in what’s going on in the 9th district in California. Does the judge’s ruling of unconstitionality affect all of the other districts or does it have to wait until it hits SCOTUS (or is used as stare decisis in the other districts as well)?
The federal district court ruling creates no precedent. It applies only to the parties involved in the case.
The federal circuit court’s ruling creates binding precedent within the bounderies of the circuit.
The Supreme Court’s ruling creates binding precedent everywhere in the known universe. 
Thanks!
Super slight nitpick: a federal district court ruling produces no binding precedent (except arguably in front of the same federal district judge), but it can create useful persuasive authority. Let’s say you have a case in which there’s an obscure point of law that has never been ruled on by a Circuit Court of Appeals or by the Supreme Court. However, there are 10 different federal district courts scattered around the country that have all published opinions ruling in favor of the argument you are making. The district court opinions aren’t binding, but can make a very good argument that the court in your case should rule the same way.
Well, not north of 49…
The ruling was a 9th circuit court, no? So it applies to all the states included in that circuit, correct?
Everyone’s right.
TJdude825, it was the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and therefore binds all lower courts in the Ninth Circuit (i.e., all the district courts).
A district court’s decision (a district court is the trial court, where a case could be heard by a judge and jury, or just a judge alone, with evidence, witnesses, etc.) binds only the parties to that case. It does not bind anyone else, except that, as pravnik notes, it can be considered persuasive authority to other courts. For example, another court may have the exact same issue (but different parties) before it, and so will look and see how other courts have reasoned and what conclusions they’ve reached.
An appellate court, like the Circuit Courts of Appeals, binds the courts in that circuit – the district courts. So the federal courts in the Ninth Circuit are bound by this decision, but the courts in the Second Circuit, for example, are not. But, again, the Ninth Circuit’s decision could be persuasive authority for the Second Circuit, if the Second Circuit had a similar case.
The Supreme Court binds all lower courts under its authority – all federal district courts and all circuit courts of appeals. It also binds all state courts when those state courts are ruling on questions of federal law (i.e., the constitution or a federal statute).
As Northern Piper points out, the Supreme Court only binds those courts applying the same law. So a Canadian court is not bound to apply US Supreme Court precedent to a case involving a Canadian statutory question, even if the US and Canadian statutes are identical. But, again, the Canadian court would consider the US court a persuasive authority – the Canadian court could consider how another court, addressing a similar issue, reasoned its way to a solution – just as the US court would consider the Canadian court a persuasive authority.
But the Canadian court would be bound by the US Supreme Court’s decisions if the Canadian court were sitting to decide a case in which the parties had agreed (i.e., in a contract with a choice of law clause) that US law governed. So Bricker is right: the Supreme Court can create binding precedent everywhere in the known universe.
The current pledge decision was a district court decision. It will probably go to the Court of Appeals for the 9th circuit, and the 9th circuit will probably affirm it, because they did last time, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Sorry. My bad for assuming it was Ninth Circuit. So my previous statement about everyone being right needs to be amended to read: “everyone is correct except me, who assumed stuff without checking.”
Well, no. The decisions of the 9th Circuit, a Federal Court, might be persuasive before, for instance, an Arizona State Court, but they certainly have no direct precedential authority. The idea of Precedent can get a little confusing. Generally it means that there should be uniformity and predictability in rulings on matters of law. The fact that we run dual and parallel court systems muddies the water.
The idea is that a court or judge has an obligation to honor, conform to, follow and rule consistently with the decisions of the court that has the power to review his/its decision. Thus the Arizona state trial court will be bound by the prededent of to the decisions of the Arizona State Supreme Court but may or may not chose to follow a decision by the 9th Circuit Court. This is especially true in a case in which the Federal Court is dealing with Arizona law. Federal Courts frequently become involved with state law questions in, for instance, cases involving citizens of two different states or bankruptcy matters. The federal Courts frequently ask the State Courts to advise on state law matters (certified questions of law). On questions about the US Constitution the state courts must recognize the decisions of the US Sup Ct, but not necessarily those of any Federal Circuit Court.
No Federal Court has the power to tell a State Court what the State Constitution or Statutes mean, save in cases where there is a conflict between the State Law and the US Constitution or a Preemptive Federal Statute.
You see, this isn’t really like calling balls and strikes and applying the infield fly rule.
Well of course not. The infield fly rule – that’s complicated.
Good point, Campion, but I would respectfully suggest that even if the contract had a US choice of law clause, and the SCOTUS had ruled on that law, Canadian courts would not necessarily be bound by it. Our courts always have a discretion to refuse to enforce a foreign law if for some reason it’s contrary to Canadian public policy.
For example, one issue that has come up in Canada in some cases is whether our courts should enforce extremely large damage awards from US courts, if the damage calculation departs significantly from Canadian norms. So far, the Supreme Court of Canada had allowed such claims to be enforced, but given the right facts, it might conclude that the US court’s damage award is not to be enforced in Canada, even if SCOTUS had upheld the award under US due process rules.
You’re right. Same would be true of a US court (although, maybe a bit less so, because of how most choice of law analyses are done, including a prong on the competing public policy issues). Although, to nit pick your example, you’re talking about enforcing a judgment, which is a bit different issue. There, the court must apply Canadian law on enforcement of judgments to a foreign court’s decision. Although all I know about Canadian law I have learned from you, Northern Piper, doesn’t Canadian law require the court to consider whether the judgment that the applicant seeks to enforce was obtained properly – i.e., accords with traditional notions of fairness or due process? As a result, a huge judgment from a foreign court could be found unenforceable in a Canadian court if that court determines that there was something unfair about how the judgment was obtained. But that doesn’t go to the application of substantive foreign law; instead, that goes to the application of Canadian law in a Canadian court to a Canadian issue. Maybe I’m wrong. Does the Canadian court consider the issue of the fairness of the underlying substantive law? Now I’m intrigued. Can you link to an article or something on the issue?
Not to get too political in GQ, but doesn’t Scalia have regular conniptions over the notion of looking to non-US courts for, well, anything?
I’m unfamiliar with how regularly Justice Scalia has conniptions over anything; for all I know, his dissent in *Roper v. Simmons* is a one-off. But he is annoyed that the Court seems to adopt foreign opinion over American opinion (legislators also were angered that the Court cited foreign authority as persuasive). You’ll note in his dissent that he is opposed to the Court considering foreign opinion regarding the death penalty, not only because it is not relevant to a determination of what the constitution says, but because the Court essentially is picking and choosing only evidence that supports its opinions:
Setting aside any knee-jerk response to the fact that Justice Scalia wrote the opinion, he makes some valid points. For completeness, here is a link to the majority/concurrence/other dissent.
One thing to watch in the coming terms is if the Court’s “reliance” on foreign law will change. The Late Chief was the biggest proponent of that on the Court; I don’t know if the new Chief (whether Roberts or someone else) will feel differently.
–Cliffy
Did Scalia show that the Court has preferentially used foreign rulings? If he did then he’s got a point. Otherwise not I would say.
And don’t our courts sometimes cite English Common Law going all the way back to Ethelred the Ugly (or some similar handle)?
I’m taking a wild guess here, but don’t most of the US decisions cited in opinions support the opinion? Would that be called invoking US law when it agrees with one’s own thinking?
Well, US state law often explictly incorporates English common law. In Virginia, for example, the common law prior to the fourth year of the reign of James the First is included in the law, except to the extent it conflicts with the constitution or statutes made by the Virginia legislature.
There is no general federal criminal common law. Federal criminal law is a creature of statute as modified by case law. (I suppose you could call that case law “common law,” but I believe it’s a useful distinction to say “case law” to refer to US courts’ decisions and “common law” to refer to the body of case law developed in England and inherited here by the states.)
The Simmons case was perhaps the worst example I could have used. The issue, as framed by the majority in the case, was whether the execution of a person under 18 so offended our sensibilities that it was “cruel and unusual punishment.” Scalia argued that (1) the court adressed this issue only 15 years ago, and found that it did not; (2) to the extent that there has been a sea change in public opinion in those 15 years, we would see it by the number of state legislatures that have raised the minimum age for the death penalty; (3) the number of states making such a change is 4 in the 15 years since the Court’s last decision, meaning that in fewer than half the US states that permit the death penalty, death sentences for juveniles are prohibited; (4) this tells us that, far from there being a radical shift in the American public’s view about minimum ages for the death penalty, America has, if anything agreed that we can kill young people; so (5) resort to foreign opinions, and the world community’s opinion not only does not shed light on what the American public believes is cruel and unusual punishment, and the majority can be accused of cherry-picking its support. In other areas of the law, where the US stands somewhat alone (abortion rights, rigid separation of church and state), we don’t look to foreign opinion to tell us what we believe. And the Court also cites UK law, which Scalia believes also is disingenuous. As much as we share a common history, our paths have diverged. He makes the point that there are stronger protection for rights in the criminal context in the US than in the UK, but you don’t see the Court flocking to adopt UK law there, do you?
So his point is simply that, rather than relying systematically on foreign law, the Court here has decided what the outcome ought to be, and then searched for a way to support their preferred outcome.
Yes, as Bricker said. We adopted the common law when the Constitution was adopted, but our paths diverged since then. Courts will still look at English common law, but generally only to trace the evolution of a line of jurisprudence, not to overrule a more modern American precedent.
Yes and no. Generally, most cases cited do support the proposition for which they are cited. (Other citations I find distinguishable or straight-up disingenuous.) But Scalia’s point is a bit different. Rather than surveying all foreign law, or all sociological literature on the juvenile death penalty, the Court simply chose what it liked and made no attempt to reach a scientific solution. They didn’t distinguish those cases/laws/studies that find that the juvenile death penalty is A-Okay.
At bottom, I think his problem with the decision is that it avoided clear precedent in favor of a fruity hodge-podge of pseudo-scientific sociology and citations to friendly foreign law. Like Cliffy said, Scalia may have fewer battles to fight on this front in the future. Both Rehnquist and O’Connor were proponents of looking at foreign law for its persuasive authority, and with both of them off the court, Scalia may have a breather. Until one or both of the new guys (whoever they may be) take up the banner.