Historical Development of Court

Historical Development of Court

CJS/200

9/7/2012

In the last 200 years states’ rights have waned relative to the power of the Federal government. There are two types of courts function within the American criminal justice system. The first being the state court system and the second would be the Federal courts. This is what is considered the dual system.

In state courts they handle matters of marriage and family, criminal prosecutions, personal injury or negligence cases, and any other case arising out of state law. States may also set up city or municipal courts to deal with matters on a local level. Every state will also generally have an appeals court system that handles appeals of legal decisions handed down in state courts.

The federal court system can generally be divided into two kinds of courts. The first is what is known as an Article III Court. These courts are composed of United States District Courts, the United States Circuit Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court of the United States. The second kind of federal courts consists of a magistrate court, the U.S. Court of Military Appeals, U.S. Tax Court, the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals and the U.S. Courts of Bankruptcy. These two federal court systems hear cases concerning the various laws passed by Congress, any treaties of which the United States is a part, disputes between states, military trials and bankruptcy cases.

The US court system and other countries are different by the harshness of penalty a convicted individual receives can vary greatly. In some countries the punishment for crimes that we consider to be misdemeanor, such as shoplifting and adultery, can be very severe. The majority of states in the US use the death penalty as punishment but more than 112 countries around the world have abandoned the use of the death penalty. For example, Mexico has a system very similar to ours and Japan modeled their system after ours. Britain has some similarities...