State Court Statistics Project

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Courts structure and caseload
Courts statistics Comparison
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The justice system in the United States is controlled and operated by the different courts located in different states in the country. The National Center for State Courts is an organization that keeps records on all courts cases decided and handled in all States. The organization initiated a project known as the Court Statistics Project that was to keep records of all different classes of cases decided by these courts. The project was to be used as an assessment of the legal system and how justice is dispensed in the different states in the United States (Groves, 2009).

Courts structure and caseload

Statistics show that the state of California has one of the highest court case filings, there are three different courts in California; these courts are spread around the 58 counties of California. California’s judicial system is made up of the Supreme Court, Courts of appeal, and the Superior courts. Filing in the California supreme courts was 10,512 in 2009 with 10,440 cases being disposed of. The California Courts of appeals handled over 25,000 filings with most cases composed of about 15,000 notices. The Courts of appeal disposed of some 26,000 cases with appeals without written opinion totaling 4,907.

The Superior courts of California handled nearly 9.5 million courts cases, most of these courts are spread out around the 58 districts in California. The Superior courts of California handle have jurisdiction over all types of cases including juvenile, domestic and civil cases (Cross, 1998).

The state of Texas has different courts with different jurisdictions; these courts are divided into appellate and trial courts. The appellate courts usually handle appeal cases and it is divided into the supreme, courts of appeals and courts of criminal appeals. The supreme court in the recent past has handled over 1,231 appeal cases with most of them coming in for review, however, there were few pending cases with these cases being on the decline recently (Nolan, 2005). The Texas courts of appeal handled around 8,000 cases while the criminal courts of appeal handled around 10,100 cases. Trail courts in Texas are divided into municipal, county, justice and district courts. These courts handled the bulk of cases in Texas, in the year 2009 they handled around 10.4 million cases.

The state of Utah court system is primarily divided into the justice, district, and juvenile courts. The Utah district courts usually handle the bulk of cases in the state since they are located in every district in Utah. The Utah district courts handle over 300, 000 court cases filed in the year 2009 with around 229,000 cases being disposed of. District courts of Utah have jurisdiction over many types of courts cases such as domestic cases, traffic offenses and civil cases (Groves, 2009). The justice court of Utah is the other court that handles many courts cases, in year 2009 it handled 492,000 traffic cases, 73,100 misdemeanor cases, and 19,543 small claims cases. The juvenile court of Utah has the jurisdiction of handling cases involving crimes perpetrated against or by juveniles, this court handled around 44,000 cases in 2009 (Nolan, 2005).

Courts statistics Comparison

The three states of California, Texas, and Utah have different justice systems; however some of their courts share certain similarities. For instance, the three states’ courts systems are divided into sections that handle different cases. The state of Texas courts is divided into appellate and trial courts, while California courts are divided into three with two courts handling appeals and the other courts handling trail cases. Hence California and Texas courts share the similarity of courts handling appeals while other courts have jurisdiction on all types of cases (Bornstein, 2008). The three states of California, Utah and Texas courts share the similarity of having courts located within the districts of these states.

The difference that exist between the three states courts is that, California handles most of the courts’ cases compared to Texas and Utah. The state of Texas handles quite a colossal number of court cases compared to Utah which handles the least number of cases among the three states. This disparity could be attributed to population differences in the three states (Groves, 2009).

Conclusion

From the statistics on court cases in the three states of Utah, California and Texas, we witness that the justice system in the three states does not differ a lot. The differences in the legal systems in the three states emanate from the laws and constitutions of the state governments. Except for California, the other two states have three courts for handling different classes of court cases (Nolan, 2005). From the statistics the state of California handles most of the cases while Texas comes in second and Utah handles the least courts among the three states.

References

Bornstein, B. (2008). Civil juries and civil justice: psychological and legal perspectives. Chicago, IL: John Wiley and Sons.

Cross, F., & Tiller, E. (1998). Judicial Partisanship and Obedience to Legal Doctrine: Whistleblowing on the Federal Courts of Appeals. Yale Law Journal, 107(1), 21- 26.

Groves, R., & Cork, D. (2009). Ensuring the quality, credibility, and relevance of U.S. justice. Washington DC, WA: National Academies Press.

Nolan, L., & Wardle, L. (2005). Fundamental principles of family law. Boston, MA: Wm. S. Hein Publishing.

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