Article III and the Canal Zone District Court: What Does the Constitution Require of Territorial Courts?

Article III and the Canal Zone District Court: What Does the Constitution Require of Territorial Courts?

With President Donald Trump’s pledge to take back the Panama Canal, it’s worth looking back at how the United States administered justice in the Canal Zone from the early 20th century to the early 1980s. In addition to the Canal itself, the United States controlled a ten-mile-wide Canal Zone composed of about five miles of land on each side of the Canal. At first, the United States used an amalgamation of commissions and courts to mete out justi…