Judicial Mistakes

VI. Standards of Review
In law, the Standard of Review is the amount of deference given by one court (or some
other appellate tribunal) in reviewing a decision of a lower court or tribunal. A low
standard of review means that the decision under review will be varied or overturned if
the reviewing court considers there is any error at all in the lower court's decision. A
high standard of review means that deference is accorded to the decision under review,
so that it will not be disturbed just because the reviewing court might have decided the
matter differently; it will be varied only if the higher court considers the decision to have
obvious error. The standard of review may be set by statute or precedent (stare
decisis). In the United States, "standard of review" also has a separate meaning
concerning the level of deference the judiciary gives to Congress when ruling on the
constitutionality of legislation.
United States
In the United States, the term "standard of review" has several different meanings in
different contexts and thus there are several standards of review on appeal used in
federal courts depending on the nature of the question being appealed and the body
that made the decision.
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