Court System Paper
Umeka Walton
Ajs/502
10/27/2014
Kevin Moore
Court System Paper

In the United States, there are two separate court systems: State and Federal. The two court systems were made to keep State and Federal matters separate. Under the State court, legislatures were able to generate a variety of laws. The following will review on how the two different systems came, and how the systems relate to today. Two branches are equally important, and the following is going to mention about how both the State and Federal Courts interact with one another.
A State court will differ from all 50 states. If one were to look at the capitols of each state, there of course is a state court in each one. All were made at different times, therefore making each state different from one another. At the start of the 13 colonies, the head of the state was not voted on (as voting was not created yet), but merely decided upon by the king. However, the three key branches of the court system were not decided yet since the governor had control and power. Lastly was the third court level, having a case that the courts appeal, with the head of the state and the members that he had chosen were the ones that heard the case which the Grand Jury was brought in at this time (Carp & Stidham, 2001). As centuries have changed, so did those who practiced law. Those who studied law became more abundant, with the old way of the courts were starting to be taken over by a more contemporary court system. Each state that entered the Constitution or American Colonies, started to form their own set of rules and governing, which is when the State Court system was made. Developments of the Federal Courts, formerly when the Constitution was created, the United States had the Articles of Confederation. What the Articles of Confederation was, is a document that assigned too much authority to one side and not enough to the other, meaning when it came to legislative and executive authority, there was no separation. In 1787 (N.A., 2012) those that signed the Articles of Confederation formed together in Philadelphia to go over what had been signed, and make corrections. Since this was done, there were no longer two branches as before (legislative and executive), but it also added the judicial branch. At the conference in Philadelphia, there were two different plans that were brought up for discussion.
First, was the Virginia Plan and then shortly after was the New Jersey Plan (Chin & Stern, 1997). Even though both of these plans had potential behind them, there were also cons to these plans. The first line of Article III of the United States Constitution begins like this, “The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” (U.S Code, 2004). Federal courts have a heavy burden of making sure that the proper cases are heard and at a reasonable time. Federal courts are aware that what they do affects both the State Courts and the United States Supreme Court.
The United States jurisdictional sectors were established in 1774. 200 years later, the Supreme Court (which is the highest court level) was starting to take face and plant roots in the federal court system. Our Supreme Court consists of a little more than a dozen courts of appeals and almost 100 district courts. In lieu of the above courts, are a few courts that have been granted complete authority to listen to a particular type of case. Supreme Court is the only court system that cannot be touched by Congress. Supreme Court does not listen to just any type of case, it listens to cases including those that deal with the United States Constitution, where the United States is either the Plaintiff or the Defendant, or issues dealing with Maritime (N.A., 2012). On average, the Supreme Court will get thousands of cases each year, but out of those thousands of cases, they may only hear about 100, so the