Judiciary of Texas
The structure is complex, featuring many layers of courts, numerous instances of overlapping jurisdiction (in terms of territory), several differences between counties, as well as an unusual bifurcated appellate system at the top level found in only one other state: Oklahoma.
In the 19th century, Texas had a reputation for arbitrary "frontier justice"; in one notorious example highlighted by Stanford legal historian Lawrence M. Friedman, its appellate courts upheld a conviction of "guily" (where the t was omitted) in 1879 but reversed a conviction of "guity" (where the l was omitted) in 1886.
[1] As late as the 1870s, about a decade after the American Civil War, there was no functioning legal system in West Texas.
[3] The poor quality of the state's judicial system has been attributed to the state's shortage of proper law schools and law libraries in that era, as well as the traditional preference of Texans for "'self-help' justice as practiced in the courts of 'Judge Winchester' or 'Judge Lynch.
[4] Sometimes, the dividing line is murky, especially with respect to jurisdiction in mandamus and habeas corpus cases.
Texas has 14 Courts of Appeals, which have intermediate appellate jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases.
The total number of intermediate appellate seats is 80, with membership ranging from three to 13 justices per court, as set by statute.
In some larger counties, such as Harris County, the district courts are specialized, with designated sets of courts hearing criminal cases, juvenile cases, family matters, and non-family civil cases in four different court houses surrounding the square with the underground jury assembly facility, which suffered severe flood damage in Hurricane Harvey.
[9] According to Roscoe Pound, 23 of the 34 states in the Union adhered to that model on the eve of the American Civil War.
[9][10] Similar clauses using the indefinite article to imply one judge per court appeared in all subsequent constitutions.
"[9] Relying on this language, the Legislature enacted a variety of procedural laws over the years to get as close as possible to a de facto unified district court in the urban counties that needed multiple district judges, while remaining faithful to the constitutionally mandated structure of single-judge trial courts.
[9] Large counties typically assign newly filed lawsuits randomly to individual courts to defeat efforts at judge-shopping (a form of forum-shopping), and require re-filed cases involving the same parties to be transferred back to the original randomly-drawn court.
The centralized docket system is, at least in principle, more efficient in allocation of judicial resources, and is legally feasible because trial judges in counties with multiple courts are authorized to switch benches and sit for each other.
In another unique twist, the Constitution grants the Legislature the authority to determine which court handles probate matters.
These specialized courts handle matters of probate, guardianship, trust, and mental health.
There are no jurisdictional monetary limits on the types of lawsuits that a statutory probate court may hear.
Section 16 states that the County Court "has jurisdiction as provided by law"; Section 17 states that the County Court shall hold terms as provided by law and that County Court juries shall consist of six persons, but in civil cases a jury shall not be empaneled unless one of the parties demands it and pays a jury fee or files an affidavit stating that it is unable to do so.
Furthermore, the de novo trials crowded the dockets of already busy county courts at law.
[16] Sections 18 and 19 of Article V, as well as Chapters 27 and 28 of the Texas Government Code, outline the duties of these Courts and their officers.
Under Section 18, the number of JP's (and associated constables; each county has as many constables as JP's) is dependent on the size of the county: The Texas Supreme Court has constitutional responsibility for the efficient administration of the judicial system and possesses the authority to make rules of administration applicable to the courts[18] in addition to promulgation and amend rules governing procedure in trial and appellate courts, and rules of evidence.
Additionally, courts of appeals are now also making procedural orders, briefs, and motions available online.
Google Scholar presents them in a format that is more user-friendly for online viewing (compared to the double-spaced PDFs in small font released by the courts), hotlinks cited cases, and provides other functionality, such as identification of subsequent citing cases and ranking of search results by relevancy or time (recency) and time-frame delimited searches.
Google Scholar versions now also include attorney information for each decided case, but they do not (as of May 2018) provide a hotlink to the appellate dockets, which would be a very useful additional feature.
By clicking the cause number, all documents available for a particular case in the Google Scholar database can be displayed on a search results page, and can be sorted into reverse chronological order if desired.
[27] The office is led by an Administrative Director appointed by the Supreme Court and reporting to the Chief Justice.
[4] The Governor fills vacancies until the next election, and judges traditionally leave office before their last term is completed.
All state-wide elective positions in the executive and judicial branch are currently controlled by Republicans because the state as a whole is solidly red.
In the November 6, 2018 midterm elections numerous Republican appellate justices lost to Democratic challengers, entailing in a switch from Republican to Democratic majority control effective January 1, 2019 in Dallas and in the two Courts of Appeals in Houston, and major changes in the partisan makeup of other courts, including Austin and San Antonio.
[31] Sections 15 through 17 of Article V, as well as Chapters 25 and 26 of the Texas Government Code, outline the duties of County Court officers.
[32][33] It very rarely punishes judges;[32] out of more than 1,110 complaints it resolved in fiscal year 2009, only 70 disciplinary actions were taken.
