The Appellate Process Essay

The state trial courts of general jurisdiction are the district courts. The district court has exclusive jurisdiction on felony cases, as well as divorce cases, cases involving title to land, and election contest cases. It shares jurisdiction with the county courts, and in some case justice of the peace courts, for civil cases the lowest limit for hearing a case is a mere $200 in controversy, while in Justice of the Peace courts can hear cases up to $5,000. In a "catchall" provision it hears all cases in which jurisdiction is not placed in another trial court.

Texas has a two-court system which consists of the supreme court and the court of criminal appeals. The supreme court deals with all civil cases while the appellate court deals with criminal cases. “When Texas became a state in 1845, judges were appointed by the governor with senate consent, but since 1876, judges at all levels of courts have been

A case starts at the U.S District Courts, the jurisdiction is limited to only certain cases federal questions and diversity. The U.S Circuit Court of Appeals resides over cases in where one or both parties are dissatisfied with the judgment in U.S District Court, and the court of last resort U.S Supreme Court by petition of writ of certiorari, very few cases are heard and approval or denial of writ does not have any bearing on lower court’s decision.

One unique feature about Texas’s system is the bifurcated appellate system. This means that there are two separate courts at the highest level, both of which have specific requirements to hear certain types of cases. The only other state that follows this type of structure for their judiciary system is Oklahoma. The following information about the structure and description of each level of the judiciary system is taken from the Texas Courts government sponsored website. Starting from the very top breaking down the structure level by level, the Texas Supreme Court, one of the two Texas Supreme courts, deals with civil issues and juvenile criminal cases. The other court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, hears cases that only deal with criminal activity not involving juveniles. In addition to these highest level courts, the Texas Judiciary has several levels that lead up to these two courts. The level right below the two Supreme Courts consists of fourteen Texas courts of appeals that have been created one by one since the creation of the judiciary system in 1836. Each of these

The federal court system consists of three levels. The leading and nethermost is the United States district courts. Secondly, the middle level is the court of appeals. The Supreme Court is reflected as the uppermost law court in the United States. The United States district courts comprise of the ordinary federal provisional courts, even though in many circumstances the legislature has approved acts that dissuade unusual authority to these particular courts or executive law juries. The Courts of Appeals are the state middle appellate law court. They function under an organization of obligatory appraisal which implies they are obligated to hear all the appeals of right from the subordinate courts. Courts of appeals can make an own presiding of their own on the case, or decide to agree the verdict of the lower court. In the last circumstance, several offenders choose to appeal to the Supreme Court. This Court is the utmost court in the United States judicial system, this is seen the court that is in charge of the final remedy. It commonly is an appellate law court that functions in unrestricted appraisal. This implies that the Court, via surrendering of summonses of certiori, has the power to choose which cases to hear and the one to dismiss. There exist no rights of appeal to the Supreme Court (Haerens, 2010).

The U.S has a dual court system including state and federal courts. The federal court system is limited and cases brought to the federal court usually involve a federal question based on the U.S constitution, treaty, or law. The federal court also takes cases that involve diversity of citizenship. A judicial requirement is that there must be sufficient stake to justify bringing a sue.The federal court system consists of a three-tiered model. It includes U.S district courts, U.S court of appeals, and the U.S supreme court. The U.S district court is where trials take place and where testimony is taken. The court of appeals reviews the record of a trial to determine whether there was an error that took place. The U.S supreme court is the highest

Cases heard by the Supreme Court are generally on appeal from one of the state's three appellate courts. The Court has limited original jurisdiction and very few such cases are heard by the Court in any calendar year. Such original jurisdiction cases are related to actions taken by a state official and are either requesting that the Court prohibit or force a state official to act. The majority of the Supreme Court's docket is related to appeals from the Appellate Courts but the hearing of such cases is entirely

The data that were analyzed for the cases heard in the: common pleas, domestic relations, and municipal courts were rather interesting. In fact, the table below depicts the fact that an appeal in the common pleas court was vastly more likely to happen that in the domestic relations or municipal courts. The common pleas court had just over 4% of its cases appealed which was in stark contrast to the domestic relations appeals which had only 0.35% and the municipal appeals which was at 0.46% appealed.

Most of the cases it hears come from the lower Courts of Appeals, and may be submitted by “the state, the defendant, or sometimes both” (Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services, 2016). The only cases that go straight to the Criminal Court of Appeals from their initial trial court are death penalty cases (Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services,

Article III of the U.S. Constitution grants the U.S. Supreme Court its judicial powers. Back in the day, the court used to take all cases with its primary function being to correct legal errors from lower courts; however, because of the ever increasing case loads, congress granted the Supreme Court the power to decide which cases to take. To begin with, the Supreme Court will only take cases involving substantial questions of federal law and intercircuit conflicts among federal appellate courts. All cases that show up are inspected/screened by the clerk of the court to check for procedural correctness. About one-fourth of the docket is eliminated by the clerks and is never seen by the justices. Cases usually come as either a writ for certification or as a petition for certiorari. The former is for when a lower court needs to clarify an issue, and the latter is for when a case in a lower court is being petitioned to get reviewed by the Supreme Court. In order for a case to go through, at least four of the nine judges must agree to see it. Otherwise, the case can be simply denied. Today less than one percent (around 80 cases) of the courts docket is given consideration per year. Once a case is granted, the justices hear oral arguments from the petitioner and the respondent. Following the oral arguments, the justices meet to consider each case. If they like the case than they put it in the discuss list, and if not, the case is placed in a dead list (Banks and O 'Brien 162). An

There are 94 different federal trial courts call District Courts. The role of these district courts are to hear civil and criminal cases. Those district courts are broken down into 12 different regional circuits, each of the 12 regional circuits have their own court of appeals. These court of appeals deals with appeals within their circuit. Those appeals are then heard and their fate is then decided based on the record that was given before the District Court. All the cases that involve juvenile issues, child custody and Dupree cases, inheritance/probate cases, real estate, as well as most cases that involve criminal prosecution, personal injury cases, disputes and contracts, as well as public health cases. Each state handle local laws, has its own police, and court system. Each court system has its own Supreme Court which is known as the court of last resort. Local crimes in cases go before their local courts and from there it's it is decided whether or not the case goes before the state, supreme, or federal court.

The State Supreme Court's jurisdiction also covers disputes where one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) or more is claimed for personal damages. It also hears appeals from lower courts or Supreme Court cases where a single judge has made the decision. In the situation where an appeal is made against a single judge's decision this is heard by the full bench of the Supreme Court. This usually means that three judges hear the appeal.

The Judicial Branch is one of the three branches of government, established in the United States Constitution. The Judicial Branch is a dual court system consisting of States Courts, and the Federal Courts, each have their specific jurisdiction. The States Courts hear all cases within the State. The Federal Courts only hear cases involving a Federal issue, an appeal from a lower courts decision and cases involving diversity of citizenship. Diversity of citizenship cases involve people from different states, cases that involve a United States Citizen and a foreign government, or cases that have two states against each other. The Federal and States Courts also have specific court districts within their jurisdictions.

During the trial, a significant portion of decision making is “spur of the moment.” Luckily, judges’ make fast decisions and sometimes mistakes occur, as recalling bodies, appellate courts supervise the work of the lower courts, making sure that the law was correctly interpreted. But even though the error correction functions of the appellate review it protests against capricious, mistaken legal decisions by a trial court judge, or

The doctrine of judicial precedent is based on the principle of stare decisis which means ‘to stand by what has been decided’. It is a common law principle whereby judges are bound to follow previous decisions in cases where the material facts are sufficiently similar and the earlier decision was made in a court above the current one in the court hierarchy. This doctrine of precedent is extremely strong in English law as it ensures fairness and consistency and it highlights the importance of case law in our legal system. Black's Law Dictionary defines "precedent" as a "rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases."