Hierarchy Structure Of Courts: The United States Courts

The United States Judiciary has a hierarchy structure of courts. Each one of these courts has their own functions. The federal courts are formed by different levels. The United States Supreme Court is the top court in the USA. It is the final authority to appeal in all federal and state cases (Haire et al. 2003). The Supreme Court is the interpreter of federal constitutional laws. From the Supreme Court is the United States Court of Appeals. This is the appeal court of the federal judicial system. The court of appeal makes decisions on appeals from the district courts and in some cases from selected federal courts. The district court is the third in the hierarchy; this is the most common trail court of the federal courts. District court deals
In this court appeals of rulings made in the in the state superior courts are heard. The state superior courts are followed by the superior courts; the superior courts mostly deal with felony cases. Most of the cases in the USA are heard in the superior state courts. At the lower level in state courts are the special courts which are further subdivided into juvenile, divorce, family, and housing. These courts deal with family issues and also landlord-tenant disputes (Haire et al. 2003). In the US court system the local courts are under the state courts. They include the county, municipal, traffic and magistrate courts. These courts mostly hear the minor cases and
State courts are divided divisions such as criminal, civil law, and family. A court in one of the divisions lacks subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case regarding matters of another division. U.S. state courts have a general jurisdiction; it means a state court is competent to hear to hear any case which no other state has jurisdiction over. The state has a role in hearing majority of the cases (Plager, 1989). Subject jurisdiction of the federal court is limited; federal court subject matter jurisdiction is derived from the congress enabling statues. The most important category of the federal court subject-matter jurisdiction is federal question jurisdiction and diversity jurisdiction. Federal courts also have the removal jurisdiction; this is the authority to dismiss a case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The local court subject matter jurisdiction involves minor cases including the traffic rules