T. M. v. University of Md. Medical System Corporation · ¶68

Most law students learn as much on the first day of constitutional-law class. In Marbury v. Madison, the Court considered whether it had the jurisdiction “to issue a mandamus” compelling “an officer for the delivery of ” Marbury’s judicial commission when no other court had before entertained the cause. 1 Cranch, at 175. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Marshall held that the Court lacked such jurisdiction. The Constitution, he said, “define[d] the jurisdiction of the supreme court by declaring the cases in which it shall take original jurisdiction, and that in all others it shall take appellate jurisdiction.” Ibid. These categories, he reasoned, are mutually exclusive: “[I]n one class of cases its jurisdiction is original, and not appellate; in the other it is appellate, and not original.” Ibid. Because the Constitution did not give the Court original jurisdiction to issue…

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