Appeals Courts

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Basically, what is the point of lower courts if stuff can be appealed and appealed until they reach the SCOTUS. Why not just have the case go straight to SCOTUS?

In: Other

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

You’d have a super clogged up Supreme Court if everyone and their dogs disputing their parking fines to went straight there.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The trial court decides the facts of the case. Appeals courts decide whether the case was conducted in a proper legal manner.

When you appeal you aren’t arguing that you are actually innocent. You are arguing that your trial was conducted in a way that violated your rights. In fact, in the US, factual innocence is not a basis for appeal. If you are found guilty at a fair trial it doesn’t actually matter whether or not you did the crime as far as appeals courts are concerned.

Also the vast majority of appeals requests are simply denied because no good reason for appeal exists.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The Supreme Court and other appeals courts don’t hear every case that’s appealed to them. They can just decide that the lower court got it right and it’s not worth trying it again. If there are several similar cases and the appeals courts are all ruling the same way, the Supreme Court usually won’t take up the case. Only a few thousand cases are appealed all the way to the Supreme Court and they only hear about a hundred of them.