Unit 2 Court Systems

1. The State Court Systems

Each of the fifty states of the United States has its own system of courts. Court structures and court nomenclature differ greatly from state to state, but all the state court systems exhibit what may be called a hierachical structure, that is, a pattern of organization in which the decisions of“lower”courts may be taken for review to a higher ranking tribunal. Ninety percent or more of the state“cases”a student reads in casebooks are appellate decisions, but all these appellate cases will have passed through a“trial”stage and perhaps an intermediate appellate stage before reaching the state's“court of last resort. ”

1）Trial Courts of“Inferior”Jurisdiction

Every state has its“inferior”or“petty”trial courts with jurisdiction limited to civil suits involving relatively small amounts of money and to minor violations of the criminal law. In many rural areas, these courts still go by the ancient name, Justice of the Peace（or“J. P. ”）Courts; in the cities, they are more often called Municipal Courts or City Courts. The civil jurisdiction of an“inferior”or“petty”trial court is usually defined in terms of the amount of money in dispute; thus the jurisdiction of the Justice of the Peace Court may be limited to claims not exceeding$100, while a metropolitan Municipal Court may be empowered to decide claims up to$1,000. Similarly, the jurisdiction of an“inferior”criminal court is likely to be defined in terms of the maximum jail sentence, commonly six months, or maximum fine that may be imposed if the defendant is found guilty of the particular offence charged.

2）Trial Courts ofGeneral Jurisdiction

If a civil claim or criminal prosecution involves an amount of money, or a potential criminal sentence, beyond the jurisdiction of an“inferior”trial court, it must be filed and heard in a“trial court of general jurisdiction, ”that is, a court empowered to try all kinds of cases, without monetary or subject matter limitation.

Every state has a set of trial courts of general jurisdiction, but there are differences in nomenclature from state to state. In some states, the trial court of general jurisdiction is known as the Superior Court（“superior, ”presumably, to the“petty”courts described above）, in other states as the District Court or Circuit Court, names reflecting the typical division of the states into judicial districts or 20 circuits. A few states retain old common law names, e. g. , Court of Common Pleas. New York, to the great confusion of out-of-state lawyers and frequent bewilderment of its own electorate, calls its trial court of general jurisdiction the Supreme Court, with the incidental consequence that New York trial judges of general jurisdiction are“justices, ”whereas the members of the State's distinguished court of last resort are mere“judges. ”

Specialized trial courts are found in almost every state:Family Courts, Probate Courts, and the like. As recently as fifty years ago, a number of states still had a set of courts for“common law”actions and another set for“equity”cases, but procedural reforms, specifically the so-called“merger of law and equity”have brought about a virtual disappearance of this terminological survival of days past.

3）Appellate Courts

Every state has its“court of last resort, ”the appellate court at the top of the judicial hierarchy and the one which determines with finality（subject to occasional review on“federal questions”by the Supreme Court of the United States）what particular state's law is and should be. In most states, this highest court in the hierarchy is called the Supreme Court of the state, but other names are in use here and there:Supreme Judicial Court, Supreme Court of Appeals and, as in New York, Court of Appeals. “Whatever the name, its function is the same:to review the action of the lower judicial tribunals of the state. This is the exercise of appellate jurisdiction. The scope of judicial review which the court exercises in such cases is relatively narrow; it does not retry the case on the merits, and it does not substitute its idea of justice for those of the trial court; what it does is to review the record of the proceedings to determine whether or not the lower court committed error on its procedure or in applying the substantive law to the facts of the case. ”

The contemporary idea that one's“day in court”includes the right to appellate review of every adverse trial court judgment is a quite recent development. Appeal was a“matter of grace, ”not a“matter of right, ”at English common law and even during the first century or so of American legal history. Under existing statutes in every state, the party who loses at the trial court stage of a litigated controversy has a right to have the trial court judgment reviewed at least once by a court other than the one that originally entered it. One inevitable result of this recognition of appeal as a matter of right was, of course, a vast increase in appellate litigation which, particularly in the more populous states, soon led to hopeless congestion of the dockets of the state courts of last resort.

In response, most states have created intermediate appellate courts, empowered to 21 strain out and finally dispose of the bulk of appellate litigation—cases, for example, that raise no new or difficult issue of law—so that the court of last resort can give its full attention to novel and socially important controversies. The prevailing contemporary policy is to give the court of last resort very wide discretion over the granting or denial of applications for its appellate review. If appeals from a state's intermediate appellate court to its court of last resort were granted too freely, the intermediate appellate court would not be performing the vital“screening out”function for which it was created. As the volume of litigation continues to grow in almost every state, the intermediate appellate courts become increasingly the final tribunal for authoritative disposition of far more cases than will ever reach the state's court of last resort.

2. The Federal Courts

The Supreme Court is the only federal court directly created by the Constitution itself. The other courts in the federal judicial system are created by Acts of Congress enacted pursuant to ArticleⅢof the Constitution. The landmark statute in the evolution of the federal judicial system was passed by the first Congress as one of its early orders of business and became law on September 24,1789. This statute, entitled“An Act to establish the Judicial Courts of the United States, ”embodied the first Congress's decision on the issue that the Constitution itself had not resolved:whether there should be federal trial courts as well as a Supreme Court or whether the interpretation and enforcement of federal law should be left entirely to the existing state trial and appellate courts, subject to review by the Supreme Court of the United States. The organization of the federal judiciary has greatly changed over the years since 1789, but the decision of the first Congress to establish a federal judicial system, of trial as well as appellate courts, set the course for the national judicial future.

The basic federal court system as it now exists is a three-tier hierarchy:（1）trial courts of general jurisdiction, known as the District Courts; （2）intermediate appellate courts, called the Courts of Appeals; and（3）the Supreme Court, specifically provided for by ArticleⅢof the Constitution and operating as the court of last resort for the federal judicial system and, in matters of federal law, for the state judicial systems as well. There are a few specialized federal courts（e. g. , the Claims Court or the Tax Court）, which operate more or less like District Courts in their specialized jurisdiction, but there is no federal trial court of inferior jurisdiction.

1）The District Courts ofthe United States

By existing Congressional legislation, the United States is divided into 9 1 federal judicial districts, each with its District Court. Every state has at least one District 22 Court; the more populous states have been divided into two, three or four districts. In New York, for example, there are four United States District Courts, one each for the Southern, the Northern, the Eastern and the Western district. Trials in a District Court are normally presided over by a single judge, although there are a few situations, chiefly cases in which injunctions are sought on federal constitutional grounds against the enforcement of state or federal statutes, in which a three-judge court must be convened.

Although they correspond in essential function to the state trial courts of general jurisdiction, there is a sense in which the jurisdiction of the District Courts of the United States is a limited one:They, like other federal courts, cannot entertain cases that fall outside the“judicial power of the United States”as defined in the Constitution. ArticleⅢ, Section 2 of the Constitution is the controlling text and sets the outer bounds beyond which the federal courts cannot exercise, or be vested by Congress with jurisdiction.

As a result, the jurisdiction of a District Court of the United States must be based either on the character of the controversy（for example, that it is a case“arising under this Constitution or the laws of the United States”）or on the character of parties to the controversy（for example, that it is a controversy“to which the United States shall be a party”or one“between citizens of different States”）.

Most of the cases which make up the workload of the District Courts are within one or another of three categories:（1）cases to which the United States is a party, which includes both civil cases in which the United States is plaintiff or defendant and all prosecutions for violation of federal criminal statutes; （2）cases involving a“federal question, ”which means a question involving the interpretation or effect of a provision of the Constitution or of a federal statute or regulation; and（3）cases involving“diversity of citizenship, ”that is, suits between citizens of different states of the United States. For the purposes of this“diversity”jurisdiction, a corporation is deemed to be a“citizen”both of the state in which it is incorporated and of the state in which it has its principal place of business.

Existing federal legislation imposes a further limitation on District Court jurisdiction in some“federal question”and all“diversity of citizenship”cases:The“matter in controversy must exceed $50,000. ”A case within federal jurisdiction—for example, a controversy between citizens of different states and involving more than$50,000—may, as a matter of“venue, ”be brought in a district in which either the plaintiff or the defendant resides. If the plaintiff in such a case chooses, as he may, to file his suit not in a federal District Court but in a state trial court, the defendant may in certain circumstances have the case“removed”to the federal court for the same district, where it will then be heard and decided. A case cannot be removed by the defendant, however, if brought in a state court of the state in which the defendant himself resides. The historical origins of“diversity of citizenship”jurisdiction derive from a concern of former times that a citizen of one state might not be fairly treated in the courts of the state of his adversary's residence, and even this old concern is inapplicable when the defendant is, so to speak, sued on his own home grounds.

Procedure in the District Courts is uniform throughout the United States and takes no account of the differences in court procedures that exist from state to state. In 1934, Congress empowered the Supreme Court to prescribe Uniform Rules of Civil Procedure applicable both to“actions at law”and“cases in equity”in District Courts throughout the country. The uniform rules, commonly referred to as the“Federal Rules”were promulgated by the Supreme Court and have been in effect, albeit occasionally amended, since 1938.

2）Courts ofAppeals ofthe United States

Existing federal legislation further divides the United States into judicial circuits, each with its own Court of Appeals. Appeals lie as a matter of right to each Court of Appeals from the District Courts located within the geographical area comprised by its circuit. There are now thirteen judicial circuits. The Federal Circuit differs from the others in that its jurisdiction is defined in terms of subject matter rather than geography. It was created in 1982 and inherited the appellate jurisdiction of the old Court of Claims and the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.

Federal appeals in both civil and criminal cases are heard by panels of three judges, although, on very rare occasions, the full complement of circuit judges may sit“en banc”to hear and decide a case of particular difficulty or importance. Normally the three judges who participate in a federal appeal are all circuit judges, but Congressional legislation authorizes the summoning of district judges to sit temporarily in the Courts of Appeals when pressure of appellate business requires. In recent years, as the volume of federal appellate litigation continues to mount, it has become quite common to have federal appeals heard and decided by a Court of Appeals consisting of two circuit judges and one district judge.

3）The Supreme Court ofthe United States

The most important point to grasp and remember about the functioning of the Supreme Court as the court of last resort of the federal system is that only a small fraction of the controversies in which Supreme Court review is sought is ever accepted 24 by the Supreme Court for hearing and decision“on the merits. ”A disappointed litigant cannot secure Supreme Court review merely by contending, however persuasively, that the decision handed down against her was wrong; she must first persuade the Supreme Court that the issues presented by her case are important enough, as issues of general federal law, to justify Supreme Court consideration. In almost all cases, review by the Supreme Court of federal and state appellate court judgments can be secured only by a“petition for a writ of certiorari, ”which the Supreme Court, in the exercise of the broad discretion conferred upon it by Acts of Congress, may grant or deny. As a matter of Supreme Court practice, if four or more of the nine justices vote to take the case, that is, to hear and decide it on its merits, the Court will“grant certiorari. ”If the petition for certiorari is denied, as the overwhelming majority of them are, the judgment of the Court of Appeals or state appellate court stands as the authoritative last word in the particular controversy.

It is important to understand that Supreme Court denial of a petition for certiorari does not necessarily imply Supreme Court approval of the theory or result reached by the Court of Appeals or other court from which the review was sought. Denial of certiorari may mean no more than that the justices do not believe the issues involved in the case important enough, in terms of the sound development of federal law, for full-dress Supreme Court attention. A sound policy basis underlies the discretionary nature of Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction:if appeal to the Supreme Court were available in all cases, the Court would be swamped with ordinary appeals and unable to give full and deliberate consideration to the great cases it must decide with finality as umpire of the federal system, authoritative guardian of the constitutional liberties and final overseer of the consistency and substantial justice of the general law administered in the courts of the United States. The records for a recent year demonstrate the extent to which the Supreme Court exercises its discretion under the certiorari procedure to keep its adjudicative workload within manageable bounds:during the October 1994 Term, the Supreme Court reviewed 2185 petitions for certiorari, but granted only 83（less than 4%）.

Legal Terms

tribunal n．法院；法庭；裁判庭

trial n．审判

trial court n．初审法院

appellate court n．上诉法院

court oflast resort n．终审法院

sentence n. &v．判决；宣判

prosecution n．刑事诉讼；控诉方；公诉方

probate n．遗嘱检验；遗嘱验证

day in court n．出庭日；出庭权

subject matter n．诉讼标的；标的；争议物；争议事项；权利主张

judiciary n．司法部门，司法机关；法院体系；[总称]法官

injunction n．禁制令

diversity ofcitizenship case n. [美]（诉讼当事人的）州（国）籍不同的案件；公民身份不同的案件

venue n．审判地

adversary n．对手；对方当事人

circuit court n．巡回法院；巡回法庭

en banc n. [法]全院庭审

merits n．当事人的法定权利；（诉求或答辩的）实质依据；（案件的）是非曲直

certiorari n．调卷令

Justice ofthe Peace n．地方法官；地方执法官；治安官

Court ofClaims n. [美]索赔法院

Court ofCommon Pleas n．普通诉讼法院；[英]高等民事法院

Notes

1. This text is adapted from Legal Methods by Jane Ginsburg.

2. Family Court

A court having jurisdiction over matters involving divorce, child custody and support, domestic violence, and other family-law issues.

3. Probate Court

A court with the power to declare wills valid or invalid, to oversee the administration of estates, and in some states to appoint guardians and approve the adoption of minors.

4. Court of Claims

A federal court created in 1855 and having original, nationwide jurisdiction to render money judgments on any claim against the U.S. founded on the Constitution, a federal statute, a federal regulation, an express or implied-in-fact contract with the U.S. , or any other claim for damages not sounding in tort; appeal is possible through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

5. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals

An Article Ⅲ court created in 1929 to hear appeals from the Customs Court and Patent and Trademark Office; this court has been abolished in 1982 and was superseded by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

6. By existing Congressional legislation, the United States is divided into 9 1 federal judicial districts, each with its District Court.

Not including the District Court of the Virgin Islands and the District Court of Guam, which for some purposes are treated as District Courts of the United States.

7. The following chart gives an overview of the structure of the federal courts and the various types of opinions the U.S. Supreme Court may issue.

Exercises