The Supreme Court & judicial review
How the Supreme Court exercises judicial review, its structure, jurisdiction, and the landmark cases an FSOT candidate must master.
The Court the Constitution Barely Sketched
Article III of the Constitution is conspicuously thin. It vests "the judicial Power of the United States" in "one supreme Court" and such inferior courts as Congress may establish, fixes the categories of cases and controversies the federal judiciary may hear, and guarantees life tenure during "good Behaviour" with undiminished salaries. It does not fix the number of justices, create the lower courts, or—critically—expressly grant the power of judicial review. Congress filled the structural gaps with the Judiciary Act of 1789, which created the federal district and circuit courts and set the Supreme Court at six justices. The size has fluctuated by statute, settling at nine since the Judiciary Act of 1869; Franklin Roosevelt's 1937 "court-packing" plan to add up to six justices failed politically, cementing nine as a durable norm.
Marbury v. Madison (1803)
Judicial review—the power of courts to invalidate legislative and executive acts that conflict with the Constitution—was established by Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803). William Marbury sought a writ of mandamus compelling Secretary of State James Madison to deliver his commission as a justice of the peace. Marshall held that Marbury had a right to the commission, but that Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which purported to grant the Supreme Court original jurisdiction to issue such writs, unconstitutionally expanded the original jurisdiction fixed by Article III. The statute therefore could not be enforced. Marshall's reasoning—"It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is"—made the Court the authoritative interpreter of the Constitution.
Cooper, Cohens, and Supremacy
Marbury concerned federal statutes. The Court extended its supervisory reach over state courts in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816) and Cohens v. Virginia (1821), affirming Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments raising federal questions—grounded in the Supremacy Clause of Article VI. In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) Marshall both upheld implied federal powers under the Necessary and Proper Clause and struck Maryland's tax on the Bank of the United States. By Cooper v. Aaron (1958), arising from Little Rock's resistance to Brown v. Board of Education (1954), a unanimous Court declared that its constitutional interpretations are "the supreme law of the land" binding on state officials—the doctrine of judicial supremacy in its fullest form. Retain these as a doctrinal chain: review (Marbury) → over states (Martin/Cohens) → implied powers and supremacy (McCulloch) → binding finality (Cooper).