Chapter 13 Quiz — Lower Federal Courts
Instructions. Twelve multiple-choice questions and four short-answer questions. The multiple-choice questions test factual recall and conceptual understanding; the short-answer questions test the ability to articulate institutional dynamics in your own words.
Multiple Choice
1. Approximately how many cases do the federal district courts terminate in a typical recent year (civil and criminal combined)?
(a) About 5,000 (b) About 50,000 (c) About 350,000–400,000 (d) About 4 million
2. Article III judges hold their offices during which of the following?
(a) Eight-year renewable terms (b) Fifteen-year terms (c) Until age seventy (d) "During good Behaviour" — effectively for life unless impeached
3. Approximately how many federal circuits (courts of appeals) are there?
(a) Nine (b) Eleven (c) Thirteen (d) Fifty
4. The Federal Circuit (one of the thirteen) has nationwide appellate jurisdiction over which of the following?
(a) Death-penalty habeas appeals (b) Patent cases, federal claims, veterans' benefits, and certain trade cases (c) Criminal cases involving federal agents (d) Immigration cases
5. The 2013 "nuclear option" lowered the cloture threshold for Senate confirmation of which group?
(a) Cabinet officers only (b) Executive-branch nominees and Article III judicial nominees other than Supreme Court justices (c) All federal nominees (d) Federal judges of any kind, including bankruptcy judges
6. A "nationwide injunction" is best described as:
(a) An injunction issued by the Supreme Court (b) An injunction issued by a federal district court that purports to bar enforcement of a federal policy as to anyone in the country, not only as to the named parties (c) An injunction issued by Congress (d) An injunction limited to the parties before the court
7. Which of the following is most accurate about the Fifth Circuit's composition as of 2025?
(a) Roughly evenly split between Democratic and Republican appointees (b) A majority of Democratic appointees (c) A substantial majority of Republican appointees (approximately 12 of 17 active judges) (d) An all-Republican-appointee bench
8. Magistrate judges are best described as:
(a) Article III judges with life tenure (b) Article I judges, appointed by district judges for eight-year renewable terms, who handle a substantial portion of federal trial-court business (c) Independent contractors hired by litigants (d) State-court judges sitting by designation
9. Roughly what percentage of federal criminal convictions are obtained by guilty plea (rather than trial)?
(a) About 30 percent (b) About 60 percent (c) About 80 percent (d) About 95 to 97 percent
10. Stern v. Marshall (2011) addressed which constitutional question?
(a) Whether bankruptcy judges, who are not Article III judges, can constitutionally enter final judgment on certain state-law claims (b) Whether nationwide injunctions are constitutional (c) Whether the Fifth Circuit was properly constituted (d) Whether magistrates can preside over felony trials
11. In FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (2024), the Supreme Court:
(a) Affirmed the Fifth Circuit and upheld the lower court's nationwide injunction (b) Unanimously reversed on the ground that the medical-association plaintiffs lacked Article III standing (c) Declared mifepristone unconstitutional (d) Remanded for further factfinding without ruling on standing
12. The "shadow docket" refers to:
(a) Cases the Supreme Court hears in secret (b) The Supreme Court's non-merits orders — emergency stays, denials of certiorari, summary reversals — issued without full briefing or oral argument (c) The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (d) Bankruptcy filings
Short Answer
13. Why does circuit composition matter institutionally? In two to four sentences, explain why the partisan-appointment composition of a federal court of appeals is a relevant institutional fact about the federal judiciary. Be sure to distinguish "matters" from "determines outcomes."
14. Steel-man both sides of the nationwide-injunction debate in one paragraph each. Then offer one sentence of your own institutional reaction. (Total: about 300–400 words. Use specific examples from both administrations.)
15. Define and explain "blue slip" in the federal judicial confirmation process. What does it do, why has it persisted, and how does it shape the modern confirmation process for district court judges? (Two short paragraphs.)
16. Trace a single recent contested case through the lower federal courts. Pick one (mifepristone, student loan forgiveness, a Trump-2 executive-order challenge, a Title IX rule challenge, or another case from the chapter or your own knowledge). Identify the district court of origin, the circuit on appeal, and the Supreme Court's disposition (if applicable). In one sentence, explain why the venue mattered to the case's trajectory.
Answer Key
Multiple Choice: 1(c), 2(d), 3(c), 4(b), 5(b), 6(b), 7(c), 8(b), 9(d), 10(a), 11(b), 12(b).
Short-Answer Notes (for instructor or self-grading):
13 — Strong answers: circuit composition shapes panel-draw probabilities, en-banc median voting, what kinds of arguments lawyers prioritize, and the rate at which Supreme Court cert petitions originate from a circuit. Composition does not "determine" outcomes because individual judges vote independently and most cases are non-political.
14 — Strong answers steel-man Sam Bray's historical-equity critique and Mila Sohoni's necessity defense; cite at least one Trump-1 example (travel ban, DACA) and one Biden-era example (vaccine mandate, mifepristone, student loans); reference Justice Kagan's 2022 Northwestern speech as cross-ideological signal; conclude with a clearly-marked normative reaction.
15 — Blue slips are home-state-senator advisory forms returned to the Senate Judiciary Committee. They have varied weight by chairman; for district-court nominees they retain real practical significance because home-state senators have local knowledge and political stakes; for circuit-court nominees their weight has eroded over time. They are one of the few surviving forms of senatorial courtesy in modern judicial confirmations.
16 — Strong answers identify a specific district court (e.g., Amarillo Division of N.D. Texas for mifepristone, Eastern District of Missouri for Biden v. Nebraska) and the relevant circuit, and explain that the venue mattered because it affected the assigned-judge probability and the appellate review.