User talk:Jerry Edward Stephens

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Judicial branch vs. Judicial system

We should agree on the proper top-level article. My thinking, in creating U.S. judicial system, is that the real system includes administrative law courts, so it's not limited to Article III courts. You obviously are correct that the Judicial Branch of the United States is strictly defined by Article III. Can we combine these ideas?

Howard Howard C. Berkowitz 16:33, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we could be in partial agreement. It is certainly correct to consider "administrative law judges" and "administrative law courts" as parts of a very broad United States judicial system. Administrative law judges certainly are making decisions judicially. But, where I disagree is in equating these ALJs and their courts as the same as the federal judiciary created by Congress under the authority of the U.S. Constitution. I would, arguably, limit the United States judicial system to the courts ranging from the Supreme Court down to the "inferior" courts created under Article III of the Constitution. All the other administrative law courts are created by the legislation that crated the administrative agency itself. These invariably operate judicially under the authority and procedures of the Administrative Procedure Act. This judicial decisionmaking under the authority of the Administrative Procedure Act makes these administrative agencies -- and their courts -- qualitatively different than the Article III courts created under the provisions of the Constitution. A reasonable solution would, in my view, be to draft a broad article addressing the "judicial system" of the US which would include the administrative and constitutional courts. But a separate article for the "judicial branch" woul, of necessity, be limited to the courts created by Congress out of constitutional authority.