State & Federal Courts
State and Federal Courts
States generally have a state trial court that can also be the appellate court for small claims court appeals. Appellate courts are the part of the judicial system that is responsible for hearing and reviewing appeals from legal cases that have already been heard in a trial-level or other lower court. This trial court is usually called superior court, circuit court, or county court. State trial courts are generally all-purpose and hear civil litigation matters, state criminal trials, and nonlitigation cases including family law, wills and probate, foreclosures, and juvenile adjudications. States can, however, create “specialty courts” to hear special matters and free up the trial courts for basic criminal prosecutions and civil litigation trials. Litigation refers to the process of resolving disputes by filing or answering a complaint through the public court system.
The intermediate appellate court for the state court system is usually called the state court of appeals, although some smaller or low-population states may have only one appellate court called the state supreme court. The state courts of appeal provide appeals of right, meaning that they must hear an appeal coming from the state’s trial court if adequate grounds are present. The highest appellate court for the state court system is usually called the state supreme court. In states that have both intermediate and high-level appellate courts, the state supreme court is a discretionary court that gets to select the appeals it hears, very similar to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The federal court system also has three tiers: district courts, courts of appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. district courts are the trial courts of the national system, in which federal cases are tried, witness testimonies are heard, and evidence is presented. No district court crosses state lines, and a single judge oversees each one. Some cases are heard by a jury and some are not.
The U.S. courts of appeals, or circuit courts, are overseen by a rotating panel of three judges who do not hold trials but instead review the rulings of the trial (district) courts within their geographic circuit. The circuit courts are often referred to as the intermediate appellate courts of the federal system since their rulings can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Moreover, different circuits can hold legal and cultural views, which can lead to differing outcomes on similar legal questions. In such scenarios, clarification from the U.S. Supreme Court might be needed.
The U.S. Supreme Court has nine justices—one chief justice and eight associate justices. As the national court of last resort for all other courts in the system, the Supreme Court plays a vital role in setting the standards of interpretation that the lower courts follow. The Supreme Court’s decisions are binding across the nation and establish the precedent by which future cases are resolved in all the system’s tiers.
Types of Jurisdictions
Every court system has jurisdiction over certain cases, from enforcing traffic laws to hearing capital murder charges. There are four types of jurisdictions:
Original Jurisdiction – the court that gets to hear the case first. For example, municipal courts typically have original jurisdiction over traffic offenses the occur within city limits.
Appellate Jurisdiction – the power for a higher court to review a lower court’s decision. For example, the Texas Court of Appeals has appellate jurisdiction over the district courts.
Personal Jurisdiction – the power of a court over specific litigants. It requires litigants to have some form of minimum contact with the state where the case is filed.
Subject Matter Jurisdiction – the requirement that a given court has power to hear the specific kind of claim that is brought to that court.
Additional Resources
Chapter 6: Federal Court System
Chapter 7: State Court Systems
References and Resources
Listed below are the references and resources used to curate this module.
Jurkowski, Stephanie (2017). Subject Matter Jurisdiction. Cornell Law School. Retrieved from law.cornell.edu/wex/subject_matter_jurisdiction.
Legal Information Institute (2020). Litigation. Cornell Law School. Retrieved from law.cornell.edu/wex/litigation.
Lumen Learning (2020). American Government. Lumen Candela. Retrieved from courses.lumenlearning.com/amgovernment/.
Lumen Learning (2020). Criminal Justice. Lumen Candela. Retrieved from courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-bmcc-criminaljustice/.
Lumen Learning (2020). Legal and Social Environment. Lumen Candela. Retrieved from courses.lumenlearning.com/legsocenvirnbusleap/
Lumen Learning (2020). Texas Government. Lumen Learning. Retrieved from courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-odessa-texasgov/.
Kenton, Will (2019). Appellate Courts. Investopedia. Retrieved from investopedia.com/terms/a/appellate-courts.asp.
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