A court of general jurisdiction, in the law of the United States, is a court with authority to hear cases in law and in equity of all kinds – criminal, civil, family, probate, and other legal claims.
Judges are able to claim judicial immunity for acts that are not completely beyond their jurisdiction.
However, a judge in a court of general jurisdiction who happened to be assigned to a probate case would be immune from suit for sending a party to jail, because handing down a criminal sentence is not completely beyond the jurisdiction of such a judge.
In the United States, this principle was established by the Supreme Court in Stump v.
[5] The Court found in that case that an Indiana judge was immune from a suit brought by a young woman whom the judge had ordered to be sterilized, at the behest of the woman's mother.