Whenever we talk about the Supreme Court of the United States we all know that it is the major court in the country. They listen to cases appealed from lower federal courts or cases appealed from state courts. However, every single state has its own courts and every state has a supreme court. In the case of Texas there are two major courts which are the Supreme Court of Texas that is in-charged of hearing cases for civil matters. And then there is the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that deal with any criminal matters in Texas.
Before going in-depth on the two major courts that Texas has, we have to understand the Texas court system. On the Article V of the Texas Constitution states that the “judicial power of this State shall be vested in
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The Supreme court of Texas and the Court of Criminal Appeals give statewide jurisdiction. According to the official website for this courts: www.txcourt.gov. The Court of Criminal Appeals consists of a presiding judge, and other eight judges. On the Supreme Court of Texas there is the Chief justice and eight judges. One thing that I didn’t know before reading and doing research and found this very good is that all of the judges of both of the courts are elected by the people except for one; that is the Chief justice appointed by the state Governor and it is subject to Senate confirmation. The justices are elected for a six-year terms. Some specifications for the justices that I found for the Supreme Court of Texas was that “All members of the Court must be at least 35 years of age, a citizen of Texas, licensed to practice law in Texas, and must have practiced law (or have been a lawyer and a judge of a court of record together) for at least ten years.” (http://www.txcourts.gov/supreme) Which is stated on the Texas Constitution Article 5 section 2. However, for the Court of Criminal Appeals on the same website they didn’t listed the same requirements and it got me thinking well if they are two higher courts in the state of Texas shouldn’t they have the same