Cooper v. Aaron

The United States judicial system is unusual in that it features two geographically overlapping but distinct sets of sovereigns: (1) a system of non-overlapping, theoretically sovereign states, and (2) a single federal government, supreme when it operates but theoretically limited in its sphere of operation, and also featuring its own court system. Each state has its own constitution and its own court system. Each state’s court system has a set of lowest level, or trial, courts. Plaintiffs initiate cases in trial courts, which are empowered to hear any type of case. We say that state trial courts are courts of general jurisdiction because they have the power to hear any type of case, regardless of subject matter. The federal government also has a constitution, often referred to as simply “The Constitution,” adopted in the late 1700s. The Constitution established the United States Supreme Court, but did not require the establishment of lower federal courts. Instead, Article III gave Congress the power to establish the lower federal courts. The very first Congress to convene exercised that power in the first “Judiciary Act.” Today, the federal court system includes federal “district courts,” which are the federal trial courts.

As noted above, the federal government is supreme when it operates but is theoretically limited in its sphere of operation. The federal district courts operationalize this principle in that they have limited subject matter jurisdiction, meaning they can hear only certain kinds of cases.

Thus, a consequence of the United States’ state/federal system is that there are two geographically overlapping but distinct sets of court systems. A plaintiff may initiate any kind of case in a state trial court system. If a case fits within the federal courts' subject matter jurisdiction, a plaintiff may also initiate that case in a federal district court. In that situation, a plaintiff has a choice: file in a state trial court, or file in a federal district court. For cases that fall outside of the federal district courts’ subject matter jurisdiction, plaintiffs must initiate in state trial courts.

We will not do a full Socratic treatment of this case in class.  I assigned it to get you to think about why a plaintiff (more likely, a plaintiff's attorney) might choose to file a case in a state court or a federal court.  What sorts of things should an attorney consider when deciding where to initiate a case?

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In Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), the Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment renders unconstitutional state action that segregates school children by race.  This holding, and that in a subsequent opinion addressing remedy,  Brown v. Board of Education,  349 U.S. 294 (1955), were met with a campaign of “massive resistance” by state governors and legislators.  A key battleground in this campaign was Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.  There, in September of 1957, the local school board sought to comply (or at least, to begin to comply) with Brown’s mandate by enrolling nine African-American children at Central High.  The children were met by the Arkansas National Guard, who were following Governor Orval Faubus’ order to prevent the children from entering school grounds.

After further political and legal machinations, as well as some mob action by persons opposed to desegregation, the nine children gained access to the high school, first under the protection of local and state police, then under the protection of regular United States military troops, then under the Arkansas National Guard, which President Eisenhower had, in the meantime, federalized by executive order.  Pictures of children in high school classrooms, watched over by military troops with rifles, entered the national awareness.

Citing the disruption to ordinary educational activities at Central High, in February 1958, the local school board petitioned the United States District Court that had been overseeing the implementation of Brown’s mandate for permission to delay further desegregation efforts for two and one-half years.  In June of 1958, the District Court granted the school board’s petition, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed and ordered that desegregation efforts continue.  In this opinion, the United States Supreme Court affirmed the Eighth Circuit’s ruling.

Ordinary Supreme Court cases are written by one justice, with other justices joining the opinion, or concurring or dissenting (or both).  Notice who wrote this opinion.