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Texas State Court System Research Paper

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Texas State Court System Research Paper
Court System Structure Checkpoint II
Missouri State Court Systems vs. Texas State Court Systems
CJS/220- Erin Berger

The States of the United States have individual and unique governments with many similarities. All states are required by the constitution to have republican governments. Despite their similarities, all states have different government structures and procedures, as you will see in the following comparisons of Missouri and Texas state court systems.

The Texas state court system consists of the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals, courts of appeals, district-level courts, county-level courts, and municipal and justice of the peace courts. The Texas Supreme Court is the highest civil court in the state. Determinations made by the Texas Supreme Court are final and apply to all cases except criminal law matters. The jurisdiction of the Texas Supreme Court is primarily limited to appeals from the courts of appeals. Like Texas, the Missouri Supreme Court is at the apex of the state’s court system. It hears cases in specialized areas and has exclusive jurisdiction in five areas, including cases
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Except for the Secretary of State, all executive officers are elected independently making them directly answerable to the public not the Governor. However, the Missouri executive branch is laid out in Article IV of the Missouri Constitution and is headed by the governor of Missouri. The governor is charged with executing the laws of the state. Texas has a total of 254 counties, by far the most counties of any state and does not have townships; areas within a county are either incorporated or unincorporated. However, Missouri allows cities to adopt their own charter should they chose to do so; it was the first state in the union to do so, and in both Texas and Missouri, certain officials, such as the sheriff and city clerk, are elected separately by the

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