Court System

The basic structure of the United States legal system comes from the Constitution. Constitutions are living documents that lay down principles and rules, as well as overall functions of how law should be used within society. Constitutions tend to be macro in scope, in that they define responsibilities between the three organs of U.S. Government (Judicial, Legislature and Executive). Laws are individual (micro) edicts that are made to define specific issues under the Constitution. The Constitution is the basic framework, or the strategic direction of law; defining relationships and allowing for reasons that are fundamental to other laws (e.g. privacy, search, etc.). Laws are the manner in which the tactics of the legal system and/or philosophy are carried out and used within society. A Constitution defines the theoretical basis of law, while laws incorporate the process of law and allow the government and its officers to use the...
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