Week 9 — Readings & Resources · Judiciaries, Courts & Judicial Review

Course: Introduction to Political Science (POLS 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Halloran
Objectives covered: Objective 5 (political institutions — the judicial branch: judicial review, judicial independence, the counter-majoritarian debate).

How to use this page

Everything below is a link — nothing to buy or download. Total time estimate: ~60–75 minutes across all required items, plus the primary text used in the Political Analysis Workshop. Work through the groups in order; each maps to a chunk of Tuesday/Thursday's lecture.

Order that matches the lecture: ① the judicial function & judicial review basics → ② diffuse vs. concentrated review & the counter-majoritarian debate → ③ this week's primary text (for the Workshop).

Habit reminder: as you read, keep asking "is this describing what a court did (empirical, checkable), or arguing what a court should be allowed to do (normative, contested)?" — that distinction runs through everything this week.

① The Judicial Function & Judicial Review

Maps to Lecture Segments 2–4 (what courts do; where American judicial review comes from; Marbury v. Madison).

Reading — "Marbury v. Madison (1803)" (National Archives, Milestone Documents)
🔗 https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/marbury-v-madison
Why it's assigned: the National Archives' framing essay plus the actual transcript excerpt of Chief Justice Marshall's opinion — the case that established American judicial review. This is also the Workshop's primary text.
⏱ ~15 min

Reading — "Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803)" (Cornell Legal Information Institute, full opinion text)
🔗 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/5/137
Why it's assigned: the complete opinion at a standard, citable legal-reference source, useful if you want more of Marshall's reasoning than the Archives excerpt includes.
⏱ ~10 min (skim; not required to read in full)

Reading — "Marbury v. Madison" case summary (Oyez)
🔗 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1789-1850/5us137
Why it's assigned: a concise facts-and-holding summary from a standard legal-reference site — good for double-checking your own restatement of the holding.
⏱ ~5 min

② Diffuse vs. Concentrated Review & the Counter-Majoritarian Debate

Maps to Lecture Segments 5–6 (how judicial review spread; judicial independence; the counter-majoritarian difficulty).

Reading — Federalist No. 78 (1788), Alexander Hamilton (The Avalon Project, Yale Law School)
🔗 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed78.asp
Why it's assigned: Hamilton's defense of judicial review before it existed as doctrine — "neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment" — and the argument that the judiciary's structural weakness is exactly why courts can safely be trusted with the power to check the other branches. This is also corroborating evidence in the Workshop.
⏱ ~12 min

Reading — "Introduction to Political Science," Ch. 1 (OpenStax, Rom/Hidaka/Bzostek Walker)
🔗 https://openstax.org/books/introduction-political-science/pages/1-introduction
Why it's assigned: a general refresher on the empirical/normative distinction this week's debate depends on — not a substitute for lecture, just a second explanation in a different voice.
⏱ ~10 min (skim if you feel solid on Weeks 1–8)

Video — CrashCourse Government and Politics: the judicial-review episode (CrashCourse, YouTube)
🔗 Search "CrashCourse Government and Politics judicial review" on YouTube, or browse the full playlist from the CrashCourse channel: https://www.youtube.com/@crashcourse
Why it's assigned: CrashCourse's Government and Politics series has an episode on judicial review and the courts — a fast, engaging overview useful before or after lecture. (Search rather than a pinned URL, since individual video IDs can move; the channel and series name are stable.)
⏱ ~10 min

③ The Week's Primary Text (for the Workshop)

Maps to the Political Analysis Workshop, where you'll close-read Marbury and corroborate it with Federalist No. 78.

Primary text — Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (decided 1803; opinion by Chief Justice John Marshall)
🔗 National Archives (Milestone Documents, with transcript) — https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/marbury-v-madison
🔗 Cornell LII (full opinion text) — https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/5/137
🔗 Oyez (case summary) — https://www.oyez.org/cases/1789-1850/5us137

Corroborating text — Federalist No. 78 (1788), Alexander Hamilton
🔗 The Avalon Project (Yale Law School) — https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed78.asp

Optional one-stop references (free online)

• OpenStax, Introduction to Political Science — the full online textbook, useful for a second explanation of any concept this week (search its table of contents for institutions/courts coverage): https://openstax.org/books/introduction-political-science
• Khan Academy, US Government and Civics — a general reference hub covering the judicial branch and checks and balances: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-government-and-civics
• CrashCourse Government and Politics (full YouTube playlist) — for browsing beyond this week's single assigned video: search "CrashCourse Government and Politics" on YouTube.
• Cornell Legal Information Institute (LII) — a reliable general reference for any U.S. court case you want to double-check on your own: https://www.law.cornell.edu/

Pick-one quick path (≈25 min total)

Short on time? Do these three, in order:
1. Read the National Archives Marbury page in full, including the transcript excerpt (~15 min).
2. Read Federalist No. 78 on Avalon, focusing on the "neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment" paragraph and the paragraph right after it (~8 min).
3. Skim the Oyez case-summary page to check your own one-sentence restatement of the holding against theirs (~2 min).

Heads-up (links rot): all links above were checked live on 2026-07-02. If any ever 404s, search the exact title in quotes (e.g., "Marbury v. Madison" archives.gov) — these are stable, well-indexed pages at major institutional sites, so a working replacement is easy to find. Report any dead link to Prof. Halloran so the page can be updated.