State supreme court
Generally, a state supreme court, like most appellate tribunals, is exclusively for hearing appeals of legal issues.
Some state supreme courts do have original jurisdiction over specific issues; for example, the Supreme Court of Virginia has original jurisdiction over cases of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, and writs of actual innocence based on DNA or other biological evidence.
Under such a system, intermediate appellate courts are entrusted with deciding the vast majority of appeals.
Intermediate appellate courts generally focus on the mundane task of what appellate specialists call "error correction,"[5] which means their primary task is to decide whether the record reflects that the trial court correctly applied existing law.
[6] One of the informal traditions of the American legal system is that all litigants are entitled to at least one appeal after a final judgment on the merits.
It forwards the remaining cases – which deal with points of law it has already addressed – to the intermediate Court of Appeals.
Under this so-called "push-down" or "deflection" model of appellate procedure, the state supreme court can immediately establish final statewide precedents on important issues of first impression as soon as they arise, rather than waiting several months or years for the intermediate appellate court to make a first attempt at resolving the issue (and leaving the law uncertain in the interim).
The vast majority of decisions of Virginia circuit courts in civil and criminal cases were thereby insulated from appellate review on the merits.
However, when a case involves federal statutory or constitutional law, review of state supreme court decisions may be sought by way of a petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Despite the relatively small number of decisions reviewed, Professors Sara Benesh and Wendy Martinek found that state supreme courts follow precedent more closely than federal courts in the area of search and seizure and appear to follow precedent in confessions as well.
[12] Additionally, some scholars have argued that state and federal courts should judge according to different judicial theories on topics such as statutory interpretation[13] and stare decisis.
Under one common method, the Missouri Plan, the governor fills judicial vacancies by choosing from a list compiled by a non-partisan commission.
Most judicial selection systems involving gubernatorial appointment make use of a nominating commission to recommend a list of candidates from which the governor must choose, but a minority of states allow the governor to nominate candidates even if they were not recommended by the commission.
Although most states limit judicial terms to a set number of years, judges in Massachusetts and New Hampshire serve until they reach a mandatory retirement limit, while in Rhode Island, judges serve lifetime appointments.
State supreme courts normally require a courtroom for oral argument, private chambers for all justices, a conference room, offices for law clerks and other support staff, a law library, and a lobby with a filing window where the court clerk can accept filings and release new decisions in the form of "slip opinions" (that is, in looseleaf format held together only by a staple).
