The Court of Appeals or the Circuit Courts are the Intermediate Appellate Courts under the United States federal court system. It hears appeals from the district courts under the federal judicial circuit as well as other admininstrative agencies and federal courts. There are thirteen courts of appeals in the United States, apart from the Court of Appeals for the armed forces that give decision on court martial cases.The First Curcuit consist of the least number of appellate judges while the nineth circuit comprises of the highest number of appellate judges. The thirteenth circuit consists of the Court of Appeals for federal circuit of the United States. It enjoys nationwide subject matter jurisdiction on certain appeals such as, appeals regarding patent cases and also appeal cases from special trial courts such as Courts of federal Claims an d Courts of International Trade. The remaining eleven circuits along with District of Columbia circuit are defined geographically.
Intermediate Appellate Courts enjoy appellate jurisdiction. The intermediate appellate courts only review trial court decisions regarding errors of the legislation rather than conducting any trials. Court of Appeals review records such as those papers filed by the parties involved in a case, trial exhibits, transcripts and other trial documents arising from the trial courts. These written documents are referred to as briefs. Oral arguments are also permitted in the trial courts.
Federal rules of appellate process determine rules and guidelines followed by the Intermediate Appellate courts. These courts sit in a panel consisting of three appellate judges selected at random from the list of available judges. On special occasions appeals are also heard en banc which means that an entire bench of judges hear an appeal instead of the three judges.
The decisions made by the court of appeals is binding and set precedents unlike the decisions of the trial courts. The Intermediate Appellate courts can set up a appellate panel for bankruptcy that can directly hear appeals from the bankruptcy courts that belong to its circuit. The circuits that have set up appellate panel on bankruptcy are, the first circuit, the sixth circuit, the eight circuit, the nineth circuit and the tenth circuit. In judicial circuits that do not have an appellate panel on bankruptcy, the appeals on bankrptcy cases are heard by district courts.
The Intermediate Appellate courts can put questions before the Supreme Court. For example in the case involving the United States v. Penaranda the second circuit court had used this procedure based on the Supreme Court's decision in another case, Blakely v. Washington to question the Supreme Court of The United States.The Supreme court of the United States can issue the writ of certiorari, thereby removing a case from the court of appeals and hearing or reviewing an appeal directly from the lower court. This was used by the Supreme Court in the Watergate case involving the United States v. Nixon.
Among the fifty states forty states have intermediate appellate courts and ten states do not have any appellate courts. These ten states are Rhode Island, Delaware, Montana, Maine, New Hampshire, Nevada, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming and South Dakota.
The states which have intrermediate appellate courts may have multiple numbers of them such as the state of Alabama which enjoys a separate civil and criminal intermediate appellate courts. The state of Pennsylvania a Court of Commonwealth and a Superior Court which are appellate courts. These courts, may also have divisions that enjoy different levels of independence from one another.
Access Intermediate Appellate Court Case Files and More
The decisions on court cases, petitions and files made by the Intermediate Appellate courts are available; these are published by the West Publishing company for the federal reporter ever since the tines that these courts were formed. However, not all court cases, records, court procedures, decisions or opinions are published or available to the general public. Unpublished decisions except the opinions of the fifth and eleventh circuit courts are available in the Federal Appendix of the West publishing company. Information on intermediate appellate court cases is also available on Lexis and Westlaw that are online databases. Case files and case decisions of the intermediate appellate court can also be accessed through the court's official websites.
