>> Hello, today I'm going to introduce you to law by talking
about the legal system in the United States
and also the various sources of law.
There's a lot of material here, this is all introductory,
so please try not to get overwhelmed.
We're going to look at all of these concepts again,
over and over again, as we go through the course material.
So let's just start with a brief over view with the system
of governance in the United States.
We call this system federalism and it works really well.
It's set forth in the constitution,
the federal constitution, and the founding fathers realized
that this was going to be a very large nation,
much larger than the nation they came from which was England.
And, it would be difficult
to swallow a federal system of government.
So they divided up the power between the federal government
and the various states.
So the way it works
with federalism is you have one federal government,
and we do here.
And the federal government is supposed
to be governing the country as a whole the United States
of America and focusing on issues that affect our nation.
Each state on the other hand should be governing themselves
looking at local issues, and the primary system of regulation
in our nation is state regulation.
So states make most of the laws that govern themselves,
and this makes sense because our country, and its large, its huge
and you see different issues affecting different states.
So, the people that live in the states are basically
in the best position to make rules about those issues.
So the system of federalism works very well here.
The nation is much too large and much too varied
to just have one set of rules enacted
by the federal government.
So and the only issue with federalism is
that since you have two systems operating, and they're supposed
to operate harmoniously, the federal system of laws
and our states' different systems.
But there is a potential for conflict.
So you got to have a boss, you got to have a ruler,
even though you're trying to be fair,
make sure that people can govern themselves.
So in our system the boss is the federal government,
so states can govern themselves, and they can make rules
for their own particular local area,
however they cannot make laws that conflict or try
to overcome federal law.
And [inaudible] you see a lot more state laws than federal.
This sort of keeps the states in line.
And makes sure that states don't try to make laws that conflict
with our constitution or our national ideals.
But in any event whether you agree with this or not,
the Feds are in charge and you cannot make laws at the state
that conflict with federal laws or try
to get rid of federal laws.
So that's our system of governance in a nutshell.
Now let's look the three sources of law,
and I'll just discuss these in order of hierarchy.
So we do have a hierarchy here.
Out of the three, the highest source
of law is constitutional law.
So we have one federal constitution.
This is the old document that you're probably familiar
with written back in the 1700s,
and then every state has its own constitution,
because like I said, states are allowed to govern themselves.
Just like when I was talking about a federalism,
state constitutions cannot conflict with, or try to get rid
of stuff that's in the federal constitution,
and we call this concept Federal Supremacy.
And it says right in the constitution itself
that it's called Federal Supremacy clause.
So between the constitution the federal constitution is the boss
and states cannot try to get rid of certain parts of it,
or conflict with certain parts of it,
in the states constitution.
The main thing you want to remember about the constitution,
either Federal or state, is it only applies to the government.
It's kind of like a system of rules
that the government has to follow.
So individuals like you and me do not have
to follow the constitution, however I do because I teach
for a government school.
So in that sense I do have to follow the constitution
of the government agent.
But as an individual walking around on the street, I don't.
The constitution does not apply to me it only applies
to the government and government action.
So that's constitutional law in a nutshell.
The next source of law, and remember this is lower
than constitutional law is statutory law.
Okay, and this is the laws that you're probably familiar with.
Statutes are written and published laws
and they're generally enacted by legislative bodies.
So just like the constitution, we have two classes of statutes,
federal and those apply at to the nation as a whole,
and state statutes with are enacted by the states.
I said these are created by legislative bodies,
federal statutes come out of congress,
that's where federal legislature,
located in Washington, DC.
And, we as individuals do not get to vote
for federal statutes, we do get to vote for the people
that enact them that work for congress,
but that's the extent of our control.
State statutes are enacted by your states legislature
and we do get to vote for some states statutes.
You've probably voted for them before on a ballot,
but most of them are enacted by your state legislature.
And just as before, there's Federal Supremacy here.
So states cannot announce statutes that conflict
with the federal statutes.
Unlike the constitutional source of law,
statues apply to individuals.
So this is how regulate individual action
and every individual in our nation has to abide
by both federal and state statutes that are there,
but keep in mind that statutory law is inferior
to constitutional law so statues cannot be enacted that conflict
with the constitution and if there are,
and this happens frequently, a judge will have
to invalidate that statute.
And the main objective let's move on to the third course
of law, which is case law.
Case law is judgement law.
Its enacted by judges, righting traditional opinions.
Out of the three sources of law,
case law is considered the lowest source,
and that's because we don't want one judge
or a three judge panel, or even a nine judge panel
like our United States Supreme Court, to make rules
that govern the entire nation.
But, having said that somebody's got to be the referee here,
somebody's got to interpret the laws, tell us what they mean.
And that's what case law is for.
And so case law can be extremely powerful as far as law,
because judges are judges, they are the referees.
And so, they can tell us what a statute means,
and that might change the meaning that we thought it had,
and they can also tell us what the constitution means,
and that also can create some changes to the constitution.
So we call this judicial review.
And this allows judges to evaluate statutes
that are unconstitutional, and also to even tell members
of the executive branch, like the president
of the United States or the governor of the state,
that they're acting unconstitutionally.
So case law, although technically it's the lowest
in the hierarchy, it can float to the highest
when judges are exercising judicial review.
It can change the constitution
and it can also invalidate statutes and executive,
executive action like a president
of United States, as I said.
So case law, don't get me wrong, a very powerful source of law,
and it falls with the most prolific source of law,
because it has one case, can with almost 50 laws in it.
It depends on how many issues the judges are ruling on.
And we have lots and lots of cases,
they've been public since way back when.
So case law is prolific and powerful but in our hierarchy,
it's the lowest source of law.
Good luck with the rest of this lecture.
Please never hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.