Achieving a just Legal System: The Role of State Intermediate Appellate Courts

Edmund B. Spaeth

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1982, vol. 462, issue 1, 48-58

Abstract: State intermediate appellate courts are a most important part of our legal system. They enable the state's highest court to concentrate on a few cases; they guide the trial courts; and they often point the way to needed changes in the law. But they are overworked, with resulting delays and dissatisfaction. To improve their performance, and to increase their usefulness to the highest court and the trial courts, the following should be done: their decisions should be made final, subject to review only in the discretion of the state's highest court; they should not be divided into regional divisions or into specialized courts; they should in every case file a written opinion; their judges should be nominated on merit and confirmed by the legislature; and their staffs should be reorganized. Given modern caseloads, this would involve delegating some judicial responsibility to staff. But on balance, the gain would be greater than the loss, for the judges would be enabled to spend more of their time deciding cases.

Date: 1982
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716282462001005 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:462:y:1982:i:1:p:48-58

DOI: 10.1177/0002716282462001005

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().