California Court Location Information

The California Court system follows a hierarchy that is well defined. There are 3 distinct levels of California Courts and they are:

•    Supreme Court in California
•    California Courts of Appeal (6 appellate districts)
•    Superior Courts of California (there are 58 courts – there is one CA Court for each county in the state)

Supreme Court in California

The Supreme Court of CA is the highest judicial authority in the state. It is authorized by the California Constitution and follows the California Rules of Court. The court is located in San Francisco. Regular sessions of the court are also held at branch offices that are in Sacramento and Los Angeles. The decisions of the Supreme Court are binding on every state court in California.

This California court initially came into existence with 2 Associate Justices and the Chief Justice under the state constitution of CA in 1849. There was an extension in 1862 to 5 justices, and this happened again in the year 1879 when there came to be a Chief Justice and 6 Associate Justices. The justices in the courts of CA are appointed for terms of 12 years by the state’s Governor and the retention elections are often unopposed.

According to California Court Rules, the Supreme Court has direct and exclusive appellate jurisdiction on all CA cases involving the death penalty. The Supreme Court is allowed appellate jurisdiction in all cases that are reviewed by the Appeals Courts

The Supreme Court in CA is in session all throughout the year. Please note that this is quite rare, as some U.S. state courts work for scheduled ‘terms’ and not throughout the year. The Supreme Court hears oral arguments for a minimum of 1 week a month, and for 10 months out of the year (the months of July and August can be exceptions). The courts in the city of San Francisco and LA hear arguments for 4 months, and the one in Sacramento does so for 2 months.

The website of Supreme Court of California is http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme. All other court information for the state may be found at http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/find.htm#coa.

California Appeal Courts

These are the state intermediate appellate courts, and there are 6 appellate districts in California. The decisions made by these courts are binding on the Superior Courts of CA, and both Courts of Appeal and the Superior Courts are bound by the decisions of Supreme Court.

As a rule, all appellate decisions are binding on all trial courts (please note that this is distinct from what happens in the federal courts and in other state court systems where trial courts are bound only by the appellate decisions from the particular circuit in which it sits).

The constitution of CA makes it necessary for all appellate courts to decide cases of criminal nature in writing, and the reasons must be clearly stated. This means that in criminal appeals in which the lawyer of the defendant has agreed that there is no merit in the appeal, an appellate decision must always summarize the case’s law and facts, and the related issues need to be reviewed independently before it can be concluded that there is no merit. This procedure is not required for cases of a civil nature except for those cases where an interest of liberty is implicated.

This California Court is divided into divisions that have four appellate justices. There are 6 districts and the 4th district is quite unique because there are 3 divisions (Division One, Division Two and Division Three).

Superior Courts in California

The Superior Courts of California have general jurisdiction to hear and decide any criminal or civil action which is not specially designated to be heard in some other court or before a government agency. As per the rule set by the state constitution, there is one superior court in each of the 58 counties in the state.

These are the lowest courts in the state in the legal system. There are 1,500 judges in all of the Superior Courts in CA and this is thus the biggest judicial system in not just the state, but the country as well. Though there are more judicial officers in Texas and in NY, most of them have little or no formal legal training, which is not the case in California.

In California, most of the citizens reside in Los Angeles County, so it also has the largest Superior Court. Here there are dozens of highly specialized departments dealing with everything from moving violations to mental health. The court in California handles more than 2.5 million legal affairs annually, and there are 4,000 cases that end as jury trials.

On the other hand, some of the smallest counties such as Mono, Lassen, Del Norte, Alpine and others have just two Superior Court judges, each who is helped by a single part-time commissioner.