30 Judicial Procedure
In this presentation, we will talk about judicial procedure and judicial process.
At the end of this we will be able to:
• Explain the federal court system in America
• Describe the kind of cases that can be heard by the US Supreme Court
• Explain the state court system
• Describe civil litigation
• Discuss what an appeal is
• What the process is for appeal
• Discuss the steps for the criminal prosecution within a legal system
Within the United States laws are interpreted by the court system, so the legal system is comprised of a system of courts, the courts being in the process of interpreting the law that is created by the legislation.
The courts then are a place where there are going to be regular meetings in an attempt to weigh out disputes, disputes happening between two parties in a way that is applying the current legal system.
When thinking about this system we can see that it is an argumentative type of system, meaning that we typically have two individuals or two groups that are going to have some type of dispute that they disagree about and then go to a third party, supposedly a neutral party, the court system which will apply a set of principles and hear the arguments from both sides. Through hearing an argument in both sides, the court system can then apply the legal precedents, or the legal system, or their review of the case based on that information and come to a decision, a conclusion for it.
As we've talked about before we do know that this is going to be applicable in terms of the actual laws, the words of the law that can be applied in some cases but oftentimes there's also going to be some interpretation of the law that is going to have to be put into place as the cases will differ and precedent will play a role as well in terms of looking at prior cases and seeing how the law has been applied in similar cases when making decisions within a court system.
Article 3 of the US Constitution states that “judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as Congress may from time to time or ordain and establish.” Therefore, the federal court system is authorized by the Constitution
Currently, the court system is including the Supreme Court, the courts of Appeal, and the federal district courts. As we get into the more complexity of the court system we can see that there will be overlap within the court system and we have the question as to which Court should hear which case. This question of which court should hear which cash gets into the question of jurisdiction. We have the original jurisdiction and that is typically going to be the original court that the case is brought to. Then after we go to the original court we may have an appellate court or an appeal process that would be then conducted by the appellate court. The appellate court typically has the authority to reverse the ruling of the original case and if circumstances subscribe that it do so. If a court has the jurisdiction to hear any type of case we would say that that court is a general jurisdiction, it has general jurisdiction. Some courts, however, have special jurisdiction, have jurisdiction over a particular area. For example, probate courts will have a special jurisdiction
Each territory and state within the United States will have at least one US district court, otherwise known as a federal district court. The federal district court has subject matter jurisdiction over cases that could involve federal questions, questions such as those related to the constitutionality of a particular case, whether it complies with the Constitution, with the law of the land.
When no federal law is involved the federal district, the court could still be involved when there's going to be an issue, for example, between citizens of different states. There could be some overlap between state law, state laws that could differ from state to state
The US Court of Appeals can overturn decisions of lower courts but must follow the standards of review process. The three standards of review are plenary, clearly erroneous, or abuse of discretion. The US courts of appeals can hear appeals from the US Tax Court, district courts, and other administrative agencies, the idea being that we can take a decision to the appellate courts in order to appeal the original decisions, however it has to go through a standardized process in order to go through the appellate court and determine whether or not the courts that made the original decision can be overturned.
There are currently 13 US courses of appeal in the federal court system. The US Supreme Court is the final court that can be appealed to. In other words, if a case goes to the lower courts and it's going through the appeal process the final court that can be appealed to would be the US Supreme Court.
The US Supreme Court can have original jurisdiction however in some cases. In other words, it's not just the case where it's going to be the final review process for an appeal process of a case but can't have the original case taken to the Supreme Court. For example, if there’s an issue between states, where a state itself is going to be a party, then that’s an example where the Supreme Court can be a place to go first as the original jurisdiction.
The US Supreme Court is comprised of a chief justice and eight associate justices. They appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. The way a case often gets to the Supreme Court is by request. The Supreme Court will typically have a request in order to review a process, done with a writ of certiorari. A writ of certiorari is given to the lower courts in order to provide a request for the Supreme Court to review a particular case.
If we think about the court system as a hierarchy we will have the United States Supreme Court at the top of the hierarchy and then we've got the appellate courts that would appeal if we appealed from the appellate courts to the United States Supreme Court so we've got the US appellate courts and the appeals process for the Federal Circuit Courts and then we've got the lower courts that would then be the original jurisdiction courts. These courses include The US Tax Court, District Courts, Administrative Agencies, US Claims Courts, and the US Court of International Trade. These courts would typically have original jurisdiction and if the appeal process was to take place then they would appeal then to the Appellate Courts or the US Courts of Appeals and then it would go to the United States Supreme Court.
State court system has a similar process. States have a state Supreme Court system and have a similar type of hierarchy, although it can differ from state to state. States generally have the courts of general jurisdiction within that they would go to the state appellate courts and then that could go then to the state Supreme Court. Cases will typically stop at the State Supreme Court as they go through the state court system unless there’s an issue with something like constitutionality, in which case it could then go to the Federal Supreme Court.
A civil procedure or a civil lawsuit is a case where one party takes action against another party in order to enforce a law, a typical goal being some form of compensation and usually, that would be in the form of money, compensating for an action or a wrong don. both individuals and organizations, for example, corporations, can bring the civil lawsuit or be the defendant within a civil lawsuit.
When going through the court process for the civil litigation we typically will name the individuals involved as the plaintiff and the defendant. The plaintiff is going to be the one that brings about the lawsuit and they're going to file the appropriate paperwork with the trial court. The trial court will have the general jurisdiction. Then we'll have the defendant, a person that is having the lawsuit brought against them in the civil litigation case.
When filing a complaint, we're going to need some basic facts in order to go through the filing process. We’re going to need to know who the plaintiff is, who is giving the complaint, and who the defendant is, who's the person that allegedly broke that law causing harm to the plaintiff. We will need to know the facts of the case, and of course, those would be given in terms of the plaintiff’s facts because they're the ones that we'll be filing the complaint. We need to know the injuries incurred. We need the requests for compensation, the requests relief for the violation that caused injury to the plaintiff.
A typical lawsuit will have two parties involved, the plaintiff and the defendant, but there are situations in which the legal costs of bringing the problem to light would be too high to go through the legal process to get the settlement. There are cases the law-breaking affects a bunch of individuals but, not in a significant way, and therefore an individual lawsuit by each individual would be cost effective or something for them to do.
The problem of cost versus benefit in some cases is the idea behind the class-action lawsuit. A class-action lawsuit is a lawsuit in which the potential plaintiffs filed a lawsuit on behalf of an entire class and thereby able to have a bunch of people get together and put together a single lawsuit, one that would be more cost-effective.
A civil procedure typically goes through some stages. First, the service stage is the process that's going to be the original complaint being made to the appropriate court, and then we have the pre-answer stage. Once the defendant has been served they're going to have twenty to thirty days to file an answer to that, resulting in the pre-answer stage. When we have the answer, we are in the answer stage where the defendant has the official response to a complaint that has been made. After the defendant has been served and the answer given the defendant either must admit or deny the allegations of the complaint. After this stage, we could go to the pre-trial stage and that is when we are waiting for this case to go to trial.
If we have a jury trial the process will first start off with selecting the jury for of the trial. The trial will start off with the opening statements, each of the defendant and the plaintiff having the opportunity to present the opening statements. Then we move to the plaintiff’s case, with the plaintiff’s case in chief, giving the opportunity for the plaintiff to provide evidence to back up their story which could include witnesses. Witnesses generally go through the direct examination, the direct examination typically being the process of asking questions in order to support the case being made by the plaintiff and then they are cross-examination, cross-examination the answering of questions from the witness by the defendant’s attorney. Then we get the defendants case in chief where the defendant has the opportunity to present evidence to support their innocence or their argument. They can go through a similar process and call witnesses for a directed examination process but now that direct examination would be the process of questioning them to support the defendant's case and then the plaintiff’s attorney would have the opportunity for that cross-examination. once the cases have been presented for the plaintiff and defendant we go through the rebuttal process and that'll be the opportunity for the lawyers to discredit the other side's case and to further strengthen their own case. We then move to the closing statements, each attorney then having the opportunity to make closing statements, the goal here being to summarize by each attorney those points within the case which they think are most persuasive to the outcome they would like. We then often go through the process of instructions for the jury and then finally we're going to have the verdict or judgment on the case. once the court’s case has been completed it could go through an appeal process. The appeal process basically being a referral to a higher court for a review of the process. There has to be some reasons, some grounds, for that appeal process.
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