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Article III Section 2
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Article III, Section 2, defines the jurisdiction and mode of procedure of the federal courts. The key phrase is ''to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution.'' In other words, the jurisdiction of the federal courts extends to those areas in which the United States government itself has jurisdiction. That jurisdiction, vaguely defined in 1787, has steadily increased over more than two centuries in which the Constitution has been in operation.
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Although Article III, Section 2, makes no mention of a power of judicial review (the power of the Supreme Court or any other federal court to pass judgment on whether a federal or state law violates the terms of the Constitution, many, if not most, of the delegates to the Convention probably assumed that the federal courts would exercise at least some limited form of that power in 1803, in the case of Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court, in an opinion written by its Chief Justice, John Marshall, enunciated a limited power of judicial review.
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