Article III of the Constitution is the section that creates the federal judicial branch. In three short sections, it establishes the Supreme Court, authorizes Congress to build the lower federal courts, protects judges from political retaliation through life tenure and a salary that cannot be cut, defines which disputes federal courts are allowed to decide, guarantees a jury trial for federal crimes, and sets out the only crime the Constitution itself defines: treason. The Supreme Court’s power to strike down laws that conflict with the Constitution also rests on Article III, even though the text never uses the phrase “judicial review.”
What Article III Creates
Section 1 establishes “one supreme Court” and gives Congress the power to create additional federal courts as the country needs them.1Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution – Article III The framers deliberately left the lower courts flexible. They fixed the top of the pyramid in the Constitution and let Congress fill in the rest.
Congress has done exactly that. The federal judiciary today includes 94 district courts organized into 12 regional circuits, each with its own court of appeals, plus a specialized Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that hears patent cases and other subject-matter appeals nationwide.2United States Courts. About the U.S. Courts of Appeals The Supreme Court sits above all of them, and its rulings bind every lower federal court. Congress controls the size and budget of the lower courts and could, in theory, restructure them. It cannot abolish the Supreme Court, because the Constitution creates the Court directly.
Not every federal tribunal is an Article III court. Bankruptcy courts, the Tax Court, and military tribunals are created under Congress’s general legislative powers, and the judges who serve on them do not have the tenure and salary protections in Article III.3Constitution Annotated. Overview of Congressional Power to Establish Non-Article III Courts The protections described below apply only to Article III judges.
Life Tenure and Protected Pay
The framers wanted judges who could follow the law without worrying about losing their jobs or their paychecks. Article III gives them two shields.
The first is tenure. Federal judges hold their positions “during good Behaviour,” which in practice means a lifetime appointment.1Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution – Article III No president can fire a federal judge for issuing an unpopular ruling, and Congress cannot vote them out. The only route to involuntary removal is impeachment by the House and conviction by a two-thirds vote of the Senate on grounds of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Fifteen federal judges have been impeached across American history, and eight were convicted and removed. Unpopular decisions, standing alone, are not impeachable.
The second shield is compensation. The Constitution prohibits Congress from reducing a judge’s salary while they remain on the bench.1Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution – Article III For 2026, annual pay is $249,900 for district judges, $264,900 for circuit judges, $306,600 for Supreme Court associate justices, and $320,700 for the Chief Justice.4United States Courts. Judicial Compensation Congress can raise those numbers. It cannot lower them for a sitting judge. A judge who rules against a powerful interest has nothing tangible to lose for doing so.
Judicial Review
Article III does not say, in so many words, that courts can declare a law unconstitutional. That power was announced by the Supreme Court itself in Marbury v. Madison (1803).5Constitution Annotated. Marbury v. Madison and Judicial Review Chief Justice John Marshall reasoned that because the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and because Article III empowers courts to decide cases arising under the Constitution, a court facing a conflict between an ordinary statute and the Constitution has to give the Constitution priority. A law that violates the Constitution, Marshall wrote, “is not law.”
Judicial review is why federal courts can block executive orders, void acts of Congress, and overturn state laws that violate constitutional rights. Without it, the structural protections built into Article III would matter far less, because no one would have the authority to enforce constitutional limits on the political branches.
Which Cases Federal Courts Can Hear
Section 2 sets the boundaries of federal judicial power. Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, and Article III lists the categories of disputes they can decide.1Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution – Article III
Some categories turn on the subject of the case. Federal courts can hear disputes arising under the Constitution, federal statutes, and treaties. If your case turns on the meaning of federal law, it belongs in a federal forum. Other categories turn on who the parties are. Cases involving ambassadors, admiralty and maritime disputes, and lawsuits between citizens of different states all qualify. For diversity cases between citizens of different states, the amount in controversy must exceed $75,000.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1332 – Diversity of Citizenship; Amount in Controversy; Costs The diversity rule exists to head off home-court bias: a citizen of Ohio suing a citizen of Texas should not have to worry about the state court favoring the local party.
Original vs. Appellate Jurisdiction
The Supreme Court operates in two modes. Original jurisdiction means the Court hears a case from the start, without lower court involvement, and it is limited mainly to disputes between states and cases involving foreign diplomats.1Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution – Article III Almost every other case reaches the Court through appellate jurisdiction, after one or more lower courts have already ruled.
Appellate review usually starts with a petition for a writ of certiorari asking the Court to take the case. The Court is under no obligation to accept. Of more than 7,000 petitions filed each year, the justices agree to hear roughly 100 to 150, generally picking cases with national importance or splits among the circuit courts of appeals.7United States Courts. Supreme Court Procedures
Congress’s Power Over Jurisdiction
Article III grants the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction “with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” That language, known as the Exceptions Clause, lets Congress remove certain categories of appeals from the Court’s reach.8Constitution Annotated. Exceptions Clause and Congressional Control over Appellate Jurisdiction Whether there are outer limits to this power is still debated, but the text hands Congress a real lever over the judiciary.
The Eleventh Amendment Boundary
Article III originally appeared to let individuals sue state governments in federal court, and the Supreme Court read it that way in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793). The backlash produced the Eleventh Amendment, ratified in 1795, which stripped federal courts of jurisdiction over suits against a state brought by citizens of another state or by foreign citizens. States generally cannot be dragged into federal court against their will. The protection is not absolute: Congress can override it when enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment, and suits against individual state officials who are violating federal law are still allowed. But the Eleventh Amendment narrowed the judicial power that Article III first appeared to grant.
The Case-or-Controversy Limit
Federal courts are not general legal advisors. Article III authorizes them to decide “cases” and “controversies,” and that word choice has been read to mean genuine disputes between parties with real opposing interests. Hypothetical questions and abstract legal advice are off the table.
The rule against advisory opinions goes back to the earliest days of the republic. In 1793, President Washington asked the Supreme Court justices for legal guidance on American obligations under treaties with France and Britain. Chief Justice John Jay declined, explaining that the separation of powers made it improper for the Court to answer legal questions outside of an actual case.9Constitution Annotated. Advisory Opinion Doctrine Federal courts have followed that precedent ever since.
To get into federal court, a plaintiff must have standing. The test comes from Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992) and requires three things: a concrete, particularized injury; a causal link between the injury and the defendant’s conduct; and a reasonable likelihood that a court order can fix the problem.10Constitution Annotated. Article III Standing General dissatisfaction with a policy is not enough. You have to show a personal harm the court can remedy.
Timing rules cover the rest. A case is ripe only when the harm has actually happened or is clearly about to. A case becomes moot when the underlying dispute resolves before the court can rule, for example when the challenged regulation is repealed. Between them, these doctrines keep federal dockets focused on live disputes rather than academic questions.
Jury Trials in Federal Criminal Cases
Section 2 guarantees that every federal criminal trial, except impeachment proceedings, must be decided by a jury.11Constitution Annotated. Jury Trials This protection is written into Article III itself and is separate from the Sixth Amendment, which later reinforced and expanded jury rights.
Article III also fixes the venue: the trial has to be held in the state where the crime was committed. If the crime was not committed within any state, Congress decides where the trial will be held. The framers put the jury guarantee in the structural article, alongside the courts themselves, because they saw a citizen jury as an essential check on federal judges who would otherwise be insulated from public accountability by life tenure.
Treason: The One Crime Defined in the Constitution
The framers had watched the British Crown use “treason” as a political weapon against colonists. To keep the new government from doing the same, they wrote the definition directly into Section 3. It is the only crime the Constitution itself defines. Treason consists of two acts, and only two: waging war against the United States, or giving aid and comfort to its enemies.12Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution Article III Section 3 Criticism of the government, however harsh, is not treason.
Conviction is deliberately hard. The Constitution requires either the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession made in open court.12Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution Article III Section 3 Two witnesses to different suspicious activities will not do. Both must have observed the identical act. That standard is why treason prosecutions have been rare throughout American history.
Congress sets the penalty. Under current federal law, a person convicted of treason faces death, or a minimum of five years in prison and a fine of at least $10,000, together with a permanent ban on holding federal office.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2381 – Treason The Constitution limits how far the punishment can reach. It bans “corruption of blood,” an old English practice in which a traitor’s family lost the ability to inherit through the traitor’s bloodline.14Constitution Annotated. Article III, Section 3, Clause 2 – Punishment Any forfeiture of the traitor’s own property ends at death and cannot extend to their heirs. The framers wanted to punish the individual, not create a hereditary stain on innocent relatives.