Making Sure Stuff Happens The Way It's Supposed To
- The next three sections deal with the set-up of the judicial powers within Territory Nebraska, that third and all-important leg of the three-legged stool that is American government.
- First, we learn that judicial power rests with a Supreme Court, District Courts, Probate Courts, and Justices of the Peace.
- The Supreme Court will be made up of one chief justice and two other judges; any two of them together can make decisions (we call that a quorum).
- All judges and justices will serve four-year terms.
- There will be three judicial districts, and each one will have its own district court.
- Justices of the peace will have no authority over land disputes, or debt disputes when the debt in question is over $100.
- Each District Court, as well as the Supreme Court, must have a clerk.
- Decisions made in district courts can be appealed to the Supreme Court, but in no case can the Supreme Court use trial by jury to make its decisions.
- Writs of error and appeals can be taken to the U.S. Supreme Court the same way cases are taken to the state Supreme Court. The amount in controversy must exceed one thousand dollars, unless we're talking about slavery; then the amount doesn't matter.
- All questions of personal freedom should be allowed to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, regardless of monetary amount, as long as the case isn't trying to protect fugitives or escaped slaves.
- The judges in Nebraska have the same power, authority, and rules as judges in Washington D.C.
- Court clerks should make the same salary as they do in Utah Territory.
- The Nebraska Territory must abide by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (slaveholders can collect escaped slaves and take them home) and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (even states that have outlawed slavery must allow slaveholders to collect escaped slaved and take them home).
- The Territory will have an attorney and a marshal appointed.
- Each will serve four-year terms unless removed by the POTUS, and each will receive