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Federal Courts

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What are the different Courts and what are the jurisdictions within the United States? The system is broken up into three different branch being federal, state, and local. Federal Courts are the highest courts as they hear fewer cases and deal with more serious issues. State Courts are ran by each state and can differ in their operation from state to state. They handle all laws broken within their state lines. Local Courts handle counties or small cities and handle cases such as traffic citations or city ordnance problems. They are the lowest level of court in the United States and a more serious case will be bound over to state court to be handled within the Courts of the state. The main difference between state and federal courts are …show more content…
State Courts will hear cases where state laws have been broken, this involves cases of shoplifting, possession of drugs, rape, and murder. Federal Courts will hear cases that involve the national territory and some maritime laws. Many cases are state laws where a state line has been crossed during the commission of a crime. They also hear cases regarding federal agencies and issues of national importance. This breakdown has a negative effect on the court system as a criminal charged with armed robbery who crossed state lines must work their way up to the federal court from the local court. Ron Cooper claims, “Even if judges wanted to speed up the trial process, they often don’t have the power to do so. Trials are usually delayed because of a number of things allowed during the pretrial phase such as hearings, continuances, motions, and discovery. Lawyers and the parties to the trial are the cause for these delays. Another factor that has to be taken into account when talking about undue trial delay, especially in Virginia, is lack of judges.” (Cooper, …show more content…
The department that caught them would have to hold them in the county jail until the appropriate agency could come retrieve them and bring them back to Washington D.C. to be tried. Due to Washington D.C. being the nation’s capital it is ran differently from most state courts so that it has the same powers to handle “state law violations” since Washington D.C. is not considerate a state. Shawn Sukumar a defense attorney located in Washington D.C. states, “The nature of a case will help determine where the case is handled. First, you have the DC superior court which handles most crimes committed in the District of Columbia. These crimes include DUIs, assaults, drug possession, robbery and murder. However, DC Superior Court does not handle moving infractions such as speeding tickets, parking tickets or other driving infractions, which are handled by the DC DMV. If you are convicted at trial in a DC Superior Court case, you can appeal the decision to the higher level court in DC which is the DC Court of Appeals.Federal crimes committed in DC are heard before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. These charges may include certain child pornography offences, fraud and drug trafficking. Cases heard before the US District Court for the District of Columbia are appealable to the

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