The Federal Court System

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The primary level of the federal court system is the District Courts. Their role is to resolve disputes by determining the facts and applying legal principles to decide who is right. The second level of the federal court system is the Courts of Appeals. Their role is to determine whether or not the law was applied correctly in the trial court. The highest level of the federal court system is the Supreme Court, whose role is to pass laws establishing a system of lower courts (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, 2018). There is no uniform structure of the State Court System. However, most states follow the same structure of the federal court system. There are many differences between these three different levels of the court system. First…show more content…
Jurisdiction is the lawful authority, or the power of a court to hear, adjudicate, and issue orders in a case. There are many different types of jurisdiction, varying from case to case. One type is called exclusive jurisdiction, which means for example, that bankruptcy courts are the only courts with jurisdiction to hear bankruptcy claims. Another type of jurisdiction is concurrent jurisdiction, which mean shared jurisdiction between state and federal courts, or between two states. Criminal jurisdiction involves any location where an element of crime was committed. Civil jurisdiction may depend on specific statutory directives, where the parties are located, or where the business or property that is the subject of the lawsuit is located. Another type of jurisdiction is called appellate jurisdiction, which only appeals courts have. The impact that having different types of jurisdiction has on the efficiency of the court system is tremendous. The different forms of jurisdiction help ease the flow of cases and make it so the courts are not more backed up than they already are as a result of all cases, no matter what the issue is, going to random…show more content…
The courts do this by assigning each newly filed action with a docket number. Once the action is commenced, courts usually maintain a docket sheet for each action. A docket sheet is a chronological list noting the date and caption or description of each paper filed in the action. Each individual document is given a sequential docket item number, to keep everything organized in the order it is received (Wang, 2011). This system keeps all the information on each case labeled and organized so that each trial can run smoothly and

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