Compare And Contrast State And Federal Court System

Introduction
Both Federal Court System and the State Court System play an important role in the criminal justice system. There are some major differences between these two court systems. A prime example of this is their jurisdiction while federal court jurisdiction is limited to the types of cases they are allowed to hear. For example, some cases involve violations of the United States Constitution and/or federal laws or the Congress could give them a court case. However, the state court has a broad jurisdiction. Most state court cases involve the rights of an individual citizen an example of this are tort cases.
The Federal Court System: The Federal Court System deals with more prominent cases than the State Court System. A few examples of what type of cases they hear cases that deal with the constitutionality of a law. Also, cases that has to do with laws and treaties of the U.S.. Additionally,
they do cases that involves bankruptcy and habeas corpus issues. The Federal Court System is divided into three types of courts. The first court is the U.S. District Court which is the trial court of the Federal Court System. There are a total of ninety-four district courts in the U.S. (Judiciallearningcenter.org, 2016). Also, each district court has at least one United States District Judge, who was appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for a life term. District courts handles both civil and criminal trials within the federal court system (Justice.gov, 2016). The next court system is the U.S. Court of Appeals. There are twelve federal circuits and their job is to hear cases that have been appealed from federal district courts. Also in some cases they deal with appeals of decisions of the federal agencies (The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, 2016). Lastly, is the U.S. Supreme Court this is the most prominent court in the nation. This court has the power to decide appeals on all cases brought into the federal court. However, the Supreme Court decides which court case they want to hear and not many cases reaches the Supreme Court. There are a total of nine justices on the Supreme Court, but they all will hold their positions until they are impeached, retired, or until their death.
The State Court System The State Court System varies from state to state.
States also usually have courts that handle specific legal matters (United States Courts, 2016). The state court system structure is similar to the federal court system because there are three types of courts. The first type of courts are the Circuit Courts. There are a total of forty-five judicial circuits and this court specializes in hearing civil and criminal cases. For example, some cases are about a crime that is a violation of state law or a controversy arising out of the state constitution or other state laws (Judiciallearningcenter.org, 2016). The second court is the State Courts of Appeals in these courts there are three Appellate Districts. These Courts of Appeals job is to review the decisions of the trial courts (Judiciallearningcenter.org, 2016). The last court is the State Supreme Court similar to the U.S. Supreme Court both courts are courts of last resort. The State Supreme Court task is to review the decisions of both the state trial and the appellate courts (Judiciallearningcenter.org,
2016).