Marbury v. Madison

Week 2 — Federal Judicial Power — Judicial Review

Facts

  • President John Adams appointed several individuals to the judiciary in the final days of his presidency.
  • The group of appointees was duly approved by Congress, and Adams had signed their commissions. However, finalizing the appointments required delivering the commissions to the appointees, and that step had not been completed by the time Adams’s term expired.
  • The next president, Thomas Jefferson, refused to fully finalize Adams’s judicial appointments and directed his secretary of state, James Madison (defendant), not to deliver the commissions.
  • William Marbury, π, who had been appointed a justice of the peace of the District of Columbia by Adams, brought an action against Madison, ∆, in the United States Supreme Court.
  • Marbury sought a writ of mandamus to compel Madison to deliver the commission and finalize Marbury’s appointment. Congress had authorized the Supreme Court to issue writs of mandamus as part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, so Marbury brought his action under the Court’s original jurisdiction.

Issue

  • Does the United States Supreme Court have the authority to review laws and legislative acts to determine whether they comply with the United States Constitution?

Holding

  • Yes, the United States Supreme Court has the authority to review laws and legislative acts to determine whether they comply with the United States Constitution.

Reasoning

  • The Constitution clearly limits the powers that may be exercised by each branch of government. The legislative branch must operate within these constitutionally defined limits in passing laws.
  • The role of the judicial branch is to identify, interpret, and apply the law to decide cases. If there is a conflict between a law passed by Congress and the Constitution, then the Constitution must control, and the offending law will be void.
    • Here, Marbury has a right to his commission as justice of the peace because he was lawfully appointed to that position by the president’s act of signing his commission, further enforced by his confirmation in the Senate.
    • Madison’s refusal to finalize Marbury’s appointment interferes with Marbury’s legal title, and Marbury is entitled to a remedy under federal law.
  • However, even though a writ of mandamus would have been an appropriate remedy, § 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which authorized the United States Supreme Court to give such a remedy, is unconstitutional.
    • The act allows the Supreme Court to have original jurisdiction over actions for writs of mandamus.
    • However, this provision directly conflicts with Article III of the Constitution, which greatly limits the cases in which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction and provides it with appellate jurisdiction in all other cases.
    • The act is unconstitutional because it seeks to expand the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction, and therefore, the Court cannot exercise jurisdiction over Marbury’s claim.

Notes

  • The United States Supreme Court has the authority to review laws and legislative acts to determine whether they comply with the United States Constitution.
  • The Court was willing to hear Marbury's claim because it came not as an agency case but as a case arising from the President's duty and ability to appoint Justices to the Supreme Court.
    • Even statutes which expand the Supreme Court's jurisdiction from beyond the outer bounds of the Constitution are unconstitutional.
      • The provision of the act here, § 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, was ruled unconstitutional because it expanded past those outer bounds.
      • Marbury was suing for a remedy provided by this section. Thus, the statute's unconstitutionality extinguished his claim.