- This article discusses the state supreme courts in the United States. See Australian court hierarchy for the counterparts in Australian states. See Supreme court for the highest court in a country.
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). On matters of state law, the decisions of a state supreme court are considered final and binding on state and even United States federal courts.
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 egregious error 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
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.
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 was the case, for example, in Nevada (prior to 2014). Such judicial systems are usually very congested.
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," 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, Oklahoma, and Nevada 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 â€" which deal with points of law it has already addressed â€" to the intermediate Court of Appeals. Under this so-called "push-down" or "deflection" model of appellate procedure, the state supreme court can immediately establish final statewide precedents on important issues of first impression as soon as they arise, rather than waiting several months or years for the intermediate appellate court to make a first attempt at resolving the issue (and leaving the law uncertain in the interim).
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 (in 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 and 2010.
Influence of the federal Supreme Court on the state supreme courts
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.
Location
Traditionally, state supreme courts are headquartered in the capital cities of their respective states, 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
Court of Appeals
Because state supreme courts generally hear only appeals, some courts have names which directly indicate their function â€" 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 Courtâ€"Appellate 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
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
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.
Statistics
Texas and Oklahoma have dual supreme courts. In Texas, both have nine justices. In Oklahoma the Supreme Court has nine justices and the Court of Criminal Appeals has five (assimilated to nine in the above table).
Selection
Judges are either appointed, selected through a merit process (with an election thereafter in some cases), or elected. The elections may be through partisan or non-partisan elections. A non-partisan election does not mean that the judges run and are selected with no regard to political beliefs. In many cases "non-partisan election" merely means the prospective judges' parties are not printed on the ballot. Political contributions to these campaigns may be allowed, including from trade associations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
List
States
Territories and federal district
Tribal supreme courts
- Supreme Court of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (formerly the Judicial Appeals Tribunal)
- Supreme Court of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (North Carolina)
- Supreme Court of the Navajo Nation (formerly the "Court of Appeals")
See also
- United States court of appeals
- United States district court
- United States federal courts
- Supreme Court of the United States
- Female state supreme court justices