legislative courts
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 289 U.S. 516 - O'Donoghue v. United States · 1933Most cited · 671 citing opinions
They are legislative Courts, created in virtue of the general right of sovereignty which exists in the government, or in virtue of that clause which enables Congress to make all needful rules and regulations, respecting the territory belonging to the United States. The jurisdiction with which they are invested, is not a part of that judicial power which is defined in the 3d article of the Constitution, but is conferred by Congress, in the execution of those general powers which that body possesses over the territories of the United States.
How the Supreme Court has restated “legislative courts”
Each Supreme Court definition of “legislative courts,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “legislative courts”
Court decisions citing the 4 opinions that defined “legislative courts” — 1,660 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 4 definitions, chronological · 1929–1938
- ORIGINAL
Those created by Congress in the exertion of other powers are called legislative courts. Their functions always are directed to the execution of one or more of such powers, and are prescribed by Congress independently of section 2 of article 3; and their judges hold for such term as Congress prescribes, whether it be a fixed period of years or during good behavior.
the courts of the District of Columbia are not created under the judiciary article of the Constitution but are legislative courts, and therefore Congress may invest them with jurisdiction of appeals and proceedings that are essentially administrative rather than judicial in nature
Courts of the Territories are legislative courts, properly speaking, and are not District Courts of the United States. We have often held that vesting a territorial court with jurisdiction similar to that vested in the District Courts of the United States does not make it a 'District Court of the United States.