Three Levels Of The Federal Courts Essay

The three levels within the federal courts are: the U.S. Magistrate Courts, the U.S. District Courts, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. The magistrate courts are the lowest level and as such are limited to trying misdemeanors, setting bail amounts and assisting the district courts. The U.S. District Courts are the federal branch of original jurisdiction courts. These are responsible for criminal trials and giving guilty or not guilty verdicts. The U.S. Courts of Appeals are responsible for all the appeals from U.S. district courts. They will only review cases in which constitutionality or judicial error is brought into question. The defendant has already been given a guilty verdict and so the question of innocence will not be re-evaluated. However, the appeals court may send the case back to the court of original jurisdiction to be retried, at which the defendant may be determined not guilty in a retrial or the charges may be dropped by the prosecution. The top tier of the federal court system is the U.S. Supreme Court. This court is not mandated to hear the appeals of all criminal cases as is the case with the U.S. Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court chooses which cases have important constitutional issues for review. There are four guidelines

Going up from there are the circuit courts, the district courts of appeal, and the supreme court. There are 67 county courts, one in each county. These courts are of limited jurisdiction and deal with only minor offenses. The circuit courts are the states courts of original jurisdiction and are courts of record. They also hear appeals from the county courts. The district courts of appeal are similar to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and hear appeals from the circuit courts. There are five district courts of appeal in Florida. The court of last resort in Florida is the State Supreme Court (“Florida Courts”,