State supreme court

In the United States, a state supreme court (known by other names in some states) is
the ultimate judicial tribunal in the court system of a particular state (i.e., that state's
court of last resort).
Generally, the state supreme court, like most appellate tribunals, is exclusively for
hearing appeals of legal issues. It does not make any finding of facts, and thus holds no
trials. In the case where the trial court made an egregiouserror[citation needed] in its finding of
facts, the state supreme court will remand to the trial court for a new trial. This
responsibility of correcting the errors of inferior courts is the origin of a number of the
different names for supreme courts in various state court systems.
The court consists of a panel of judges selected by methods outlined in the state
constitution. State supreme courts are completely distinct from any United States federal
courts located within the geographical boundaries of a state's territory, or the federal
United States Supreme Court (although appeals, on some issues, from judgments of a
state's highest court can be sought in the U.S. Supreme Court).

Appellate jurisdiction[edit]
Under American federalism, the interpretation of a state supreme court on a matter of
state law is normally final and binding and must be accepted in both state and federal
courts.
Federal courts may overrule a state court only when there is a federal question, which is
to say, a specific issue (such as consistency with the Federal Constitution) that gives rise
to federal jurisdiction. Federal appellate review of state supreme court rulings on such
matters may be sought by way of a petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court
of the United States. As the U.S. Supreme Court recognized in Erie Railroad Co. v.
Tompkins (1938), no part of the federal Constitution actually grants federal courts or the
federal Congress the power to directly dictate the content of state law (as distinguished
from creating altogether separate federal law that in a particular situation may override
state law). Clause 1 of Section 2 of Article Three of the United States Constitution
describes the scope of federal judicial power, but only extended it to "the Laws of the
United States" and not the laws of the several or individual states. It is this silence on
that latter issue that gave rise to the American distinction between state and federal
common law not found in other English-speaking common law federations like
Australia and Canada.
One of the informal traditions of the American legal system, derived from the common
law, is that all litigants are guaranteed at least one appeal after a final judgment on the
merits. However, appeal is merely a privilege provided by statute in 47 states and in
federal judicial proceedings; the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that there is
no federal constitutional right to an appeal.[1]
Since a few states lack intermediate appellate courts, the state supreme court may
operate under "mandatory review", in which it must hear all appeals from the trial

courts. This is the case, for example, in Nevada. Such judicial systems are usually very
congested.[2]
Most state supreme courts have implemented "discretionary review," like their federal
counterpart. Under such a system, intermediate appellate courts are entrusted with
deciding the vast majority of appeals. Intermediate appellate courts generally focus on
the mundane task of what appellate specialists call "error correction,"[3] which means
their primary task is to decide whether the record reflects that the trial court correctly
applied existing law.
For certain limited categories of cases, the state supreme court still operates under
mandatory review, usually with regard to cases involving the interpretation of the state
constitution or capital punishment. But for the vast majority, the state supreme court
possesses the discretion to grant certiorari (known as review in states that discourage
the use of Latin). These cases usually pertain to issues which different appellate courts
within its jurisdiction have decided differently, or highly controversial cases involving a
completely new legal issue never seen in that state. In other words, once the state
supreme court is able to offload the tedious burden of error correction to intermediate
courts, it can then focus on the long-term task (i.e., a policymaking role) of developing a
coherent body of case law for the people of its state.
Iowa and Oklahoma have a unique procedure for appeals. In those states, all appeals are
filed with the appropriate Supreme Court (Iowa has a single Supreme Court, while
Oklahoma has separate civil and criminal Supreme Courts) which then keeps all cases
of first impression for itself to decide. It forwards the remaining cases which deal with
points of law it has already addressed to the intermediate Court of Appeals.
Notably, the Supreme Court of Virginia operates under discretionary review for nearly
all cases, but the intermediate Court of Appeals of Virginia hears appeals as a matter of
right only in family and administrative cases. The result is that there is no first appeal of
right for the vast majority of civil and criminal cases in that state. Appellants are still
free to petition for review, of course, but such petitions are subject to severe length
constraints (6,125 words or 35 pages in Virginia) and necessarily are more narrowly
targeted than a long opening appellate brief to an intermediate appellate court (by way
of contrast, an opening brief to a California intermediate appellate court can run up to
14,000 words). In turn, the vast majority of decisions of Virginia circuit courts in civil
and criminal cases are thereby insulated from appellate review on the merits.
New Hampshire and West Virginia formerly also provided only discretionary review for
nearly all cases even though they had no intermediate appellate court. Both states
gradually recognized that even if this arrangement did not offend the federal
Constitution, it was unduly harsh for hapless appellants, and transitioned to mandatory
review, respectively, in 2004[4] and 2010.[5][6]

Influence of the federal Supreme Court on the state

supreme courts[edit]
As noted above, the U.S. Supreme Court may hear appeals from state supreme courts
only if there is a question of law under the United States Constitution (which includes

issues arising from federal treaties, statutes, or regulations), and those appeals are heard
at the Court's sole discretion (that is, only if the Court grants a petition for writ of
certiorari).
In theory, state supreme courts are bound by the precedent established by the U.S.
Supreme Court as to all issues of federal law, but in practice, the Supreme Court
reviews very few decisions from state courts. For example, in 2007 the Court reviewed
244 cases appealed from federal courts and only 22 from state courts. Despite the
relatively small number of decisions reviewed, Professors Sara Benesh and Wendy
Martinek found that state supreme courts follow precedent more closely than federal
courts in the area of search and seizure and appear to follow precedent in confessions as
well.[7]

Location[edit]
Traditionally, state supreme courts are headquartered in the capital cities of their
respective states,[8] though they may occasionally hold oral argument elsewhere. The
seven main exceptions are:

Alaska, whose supreme court is located in and usually sits in its largest city,
Anchorage (monthly), but also sits in Fairbanks and Juneau (quarterly), and in
other Alaskan communities on an as-needed basis.

California, whose supreme court is headquartered in San Francisco and

maintains only branch offices in the state capital, Sacramento, and the state's
largest city, Los Angeles, and hears argument at all three locations each year.

Delaware, whose supreme court is located in Wilmington.

Louisiana, whose supreme court is headquartered in New Orleans' French

Quarter.

Maine, whose supreme court is headquartered in Portland.

Pennsylvania, whose supreme court has facilities at three coequal locations

(Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh).

Tennessee, whose state constitution requires its supreme court to sit at three
coequal locations (Nashville, Knoxville, and Jackson).

As for the court's actual facilities, a state supreme court may be housed in the state
capitol, in a nearby state office building shared with other courts or state executive
branch agencies, or in a small courthouse reserved for its exclusive use. State supreme
courts normally require a courtroom for oral argument, private chambers for all justices,
a conference room, offices for law clerks and other support staff, a law library, and a
lobby with a window where the court clerk can accept filings and release new decisions
in the form of "slip opinions" (that is, in looseleaf format held together only by a staple).

Terminology[edit]
Court of Appeals[edit]
Because state supreme courts generally hear only appeals, some courts have names
which directly indicate their function in the states of New York and Maryland, and in
the District of Columbia, the highest court is called the "Court of Appeals". In New
York, the "Supreme Court" is the trial court of general unlimited jurisdiction and the
intermediate appellate court is called the "Supreme CourtAppellate Division".
Maryland's jury trial courts are called "Circuit Courts" (non-jury trials are usually
conducted by the "District Courts," whose decisions may be appealed to the Circuit
Courts), and the intermediate appellate court is called the "Court of Special Appeals".
West Virginia mixes the two; its highest court is called the "Supreme Court of Appeals".
Other states' supreme courts have used the term "Appeals": New Jersey's supreme
courts under the 1844 constitution and Delaware's supreme court were both the "Court
of Errors and Appeals"; The term "Errors" refers to the now-obsolete writ of error,
which was used by state supreme courts to correct certain types of egregious errors
committed by lower courts.

Older terminology[edit]
Massachusetts and New Hampshire originally named their highest courts the "Superior
Court of Judicature." Currently, Massachusetts uses the names "Supreme Judicial Court"
(to distinguish itself from the state legislature, which is called the Massachusetts
General Court), while New Hampshire uses the name "Supreme Court". Additionally
the highest court in Maine is named the "Supreme Judicial Court". This similar
terminology is probably a holdover from the time when Maine was part of
Massachusetts. In Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, the highest courts
formerly used variations of the term "Court of Errors," which indicated that the court's
primary purpose was to correct the errors of lower courts.

Dual supreme courts[edit]

Oklahoma and Texas have two separate supreme courts: one for criminal appeals and
one for civil cases. In both states, the first is formally called the Court of Criminal
Appeals, and the second is called the Supreme Court.