In The United States
The United States is a federation of sovereign states. The U.S. Constitution creates a federal government and legislature which has general powers over the territory of the whole and over foreign policy, whereas the individual states have their own governments that, within the scope allowed by the federal constitution, have local territorial jurisdiction. There is a system of federal courts which have jurisdiction to hear charges alleging federal crimes, and state courts have jurisdiction to hear charges alleging violations of local state law.
Read more about this topic: Criminal Jurisdiction
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united and/or states:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can’t make that kind of use of the office.... I can’t do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The admission of the States of Wyoming and Idaho to the Union are events full of interest and congratulation, not only to the people of those States now happily endowed with a full participation in our privileges and responsibilities, but to all our people. Another belt of States stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)