Marbury v Madison was a legal case involving the United States Supreme Court that built the foundation of the establishment of the judicial review in the US. That is to say that the American court system possesses the power to pull down the laws, statutes, and actions of the government that contradict the constitution of the united states of America (Nelson, 2018). The legal case started on February 24, 1803, when the US Supreme Court declared an act of Congress as unconstitutional. The case began the doctrine of judicial review in the US with the chief justice John Marshall introducing the court's opinion in a decision that was to form one of the foundations of the constitutional law in America (Nelson, 2018). Before the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson as the president of the US, he appointed judgeships to gain support for his democratic-republican party. William Marbury was among those appointed. As one of the last appointees, Marbury did not receive his commission before Jefferson became president, and once in office, Jefferson instructed his secretary of state, James Madison, to withhold Marbury's commission (Nelson, 2018).
Marbury petitioned the court to issue a writ of mandamus to compel Madison to release the commission. The chief justice recognized the dilemma presented by the case. Even if the Supreme Court was to issue a writ of mandamus to the president, he could ignore it, and the court would not have the power to enforce it. Marshall identified that Marbury had the right to commission and found in the plaintiff's favor to have a legal title to his office (Canavan, 2017). Therefore, denial of the commission or his office violated Marbury's rights. Other than issuing a writ of mandamus to Jefferson, which would not have been useful, Marshall earned the Supreme Court the power to conduct a judicial review to favor Marbury's case. The case bears relevance to the criminal justice scholars in the study of how the various branches of the government, such as the Supreme Court and Congress interact (Canavan, 2017). Furthermore, the case opened up legal opportunities in initiating the judicial review in favor of the American constitution.
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References
Canavan, F. (2017). Young Federalist: The Influence of John Marshall's Early Life on Marbury V. Madison (Doctoral dissertation, Pennsylvania State University).
Nelson, W. E. (2018). Marbury v. Madison: The Origins and Legacy of Judicial Review, Revised and Expanded . University Press of Kansas.
