96 would compose the Supreme Court, of the salaries they would receive, and of the times that their Court would meet, and by providing a method for removing those judges who had breached the trust placed in them, the framers ensured that federal judges would not be totally free frompolitical responsiveness. The framers of theJudiciary Act of 1789 responded to other concerns raised during the debate on the ratification of the Constitution as well. Reacting to fears that a large national judiciary would soon swallowup the state judiciaries, drafters of the act designed a small and relatively inexpensive judicial system. The structure created included a Supreme Court and two levels of lower federal courts. A six-judge Supreme Court would convene twice yearly in the national capital. During the months when they were not sitting as the Supreme Court, the justices would conduct trials and hear appeals on circuit in the several states, sitting in pairs in conjunction with a district court judge. The district court judges would come from the courts established in each state as federal trial courts, responsible primarily for hearing admiralty cases and cases involving minor federal crimes. The circuit courts had jurisdiction in civil causes that met the constitutional requirements for a federal case only if the amount of money involved was at least five hundred dollars. In criminal matters, the circuit courts had exclusive jurisdiction over all major federal crimes. These courts also had appellate jurisdiction from the district courts. Appeals to the Supreme Court in civil cases could be taken only in those cases involving amounts above two thousand dollars. Except in admiralty, maritime, and equity causes, trials in all federal courts, including the Supreme Court when its jurisdiction was original, would be by jury. Jurors would be chosen in the courts of the United States according to the practice of the state in which the federal court was sitting. The method of choosing jurors was indicative of the desire of the drafters of the Judiciary Act of 1789 not to give states reason to complain. Thus, the Judiciary Act and the Process Act that came after it followed state procedure in many instances. A few new rules of procedure were promulgated. Witnesses, for example, were to be examined in open court not only in all actions at common law, but also in cases in equity and of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. (Previously, witnesses in equity and admiralty cases were examined by deposition.) But this was the exception. The Process Act stated explicitly. That until further provision shall be made, and except where by this act or other statutes of the United States is otherwise provided, the forms of writs and executions, - and modes of process and rates of fees, - in the circuit and district courts, in suits at common law, shall be the same in each state respectively as are nowused or allowed in the supreme courts of the same. The provision that best captured the spirit of balancing state and federal interests, however, was Section 34 of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Section 34 stipulated, “that the laws of the several States except where the Constitution,
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