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125-564: Administration is the responsibility of the Supreme Court of Texas , which is aided by the Texas Office of Court Administration, Texas Judicial Council and the State Bar of Texas , which it oversees. In the 19th century, Texas had a reputation for arbitrary " frontier justice "; in one notorious example highlighted by Stanford legal historian Lawrence M. Friedman , its appellate courts upheld

250-564: A County Court ..." Sections 15 through 17 of Article V, as well as Chapters 25 and 26 of the Texas Government Code, outline the duties of these Courts and their officers. The county court has exclusive jurisdiction over "Class A" and "Class B" misdemeanors (these offenses can involve jail time), concurrent jurisdiction over civil cases where the amount in controversy is moderately sized, and appellate jurisdiction over JP and municipal court cases (for municipal court cases, this may involve

375-511: A case available online, including briefs, letters, and notices. The issued opinions can also be found on Google Scholar (CaseLaw) and on other repositories of appellate opinions. Google Scholar additionally includes procedural orders in its database, which are linked to the pages featuring the opinions by the hot-linked appellate case number. Whereas the courts issue majority and dissenting/concurring opinions as separate PDF documents, Google Scholar combines them into one page and displays onscreen in

500-623: A constitutional matter is asserted. The lowest court level in Texas is the Justice of the Peace Court (also called Justice Court or JP Court). Each county has at least one JP Court. Sections 18 and 19 of Article V, as well as Chapters 27 and 28 of the Texas Government Code, outline the duties of these Courts and their officers. Section 19 sets forth the minimum jurisdiction of the JP court: JP cases are appealed to

625-533: A conviction of "guily" (where the t was omitted) in 1879 but reversed a conviction of "guity" (where the l was omitted) in 1886. To Friedman, this proved "that a 't' was less crucial than an 'l' in the law of Texas ". As late as the 1870s, about a decade after the American Civil War , there was no functioning legal system in West Texas . The poor quality of the state's judicial system has been attributed to

750-490: A court of appeals are binding on the lower courts in its own district, but not in others. The various courts of appeals occasionally but rarely hand down conflicting rulings on the same legal issue. In large part, the Texas Supreme Court (in civil cases) or Court of Criminal Appeals (in criminal cases) exist to resolve these rare conflicts and to set forth consistent legal precedent for the state's litigants. Decisions of

875-487: A devastating critique of the Texas Supreme Court. Houston plaintiff lawyer Mark Lanier , funded the bulk of the campaign to remove the Texas Supreme Court and business groups. Funding was disclosed in an article titled "Plaintiff Trial Lawyers Attempt to Distort Role of Judges and Juries". In the years preceding the Texas Judicial Election, Lanier had become a vocal critic of the Texas Supreme Court after

1000-531: A fatal jurisdictional defect. Although the COA follow different conventions in the formatting of their opinions, all are issued in standard PDF and are posted on the COA's respective websites, where they can be looked up through the online docket sheet created for each case. The courts' Case Search portal allows searches by appellate case number, but also by party name and attorney name or bar number, and by other case attributes. Most COAs also make other documents filed in

1125-582: A forum for discussion of court technology and information projects. With this forum, JCIT reaches out to external partners such as the Conference of Urban Counties, the County Information Resource Agency, Texas.gov, and TIJIS (Texas Integrated Justice Information Systems), and advises or is consulted by the Office of Court Administration on a variety of projects. Three themes consistently recur in

1250-425: A general rule, the municipal courts are not "courts of record" (i.e., no court reporter recorded and transcribed the proceedings), and thus an appeal to the county level would require a whole new trial (i.e., a trial de novo ). This proved to be a loophole for some defendants in traffic cases, who betted on the officer not being able to attend, and thus having the case dismissed. Furthermore, the de novo trials crowded

1375-562: A hotlink to the appellate dockets, which would be a very useful additional feature. Google instead uses the hot-linked cause numbers internally to link opinions in a case with the procedural orders issued in the same case that are also included in its database. By clicking the cause number, all documents available for a particular case in the Google Scholar database can be displayed on a search results page, and can be sorted into reverse chronological order if desired. The Texas Judicial Council

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1500-708: A justice on the First Court of Appeals in Houston, in the Republican primary for not being conservative enough with respect to med-mal suits. Massengale later lost his re-election bid for the First Court of Appeals position to a Democrat, Richard Hightower , in the Democratic sweep of the intermediate courts of appeals in November 2018. Texas is one of seven states that elects Supreme Court justices on partisan ballots. Four justices of

1625-461: A larger font and more user-friendly format, in addition to providing much better search functionality and hotlinks to cited cases if they are available from its database. Only about 1% of the issued COA opinions are dissents. Concurrences (separate opinions in which a justice agrees with the disposition, but not with the reasons for it, or only in part) accounted for 1% in 2018, up from 0.5% the previous year. The proportion of dissents and concurrences

1750-418: A local administrative district judge is elected by the district judges in the county for a term not to exceed two years; in counties with two or more statutory county courts, a local administrative statutory county court judge is elected by the statutory county court judges for a term not to exceed two years. The local administrative judge is charged with implementing the local rules of administration, supervising

1875-623: A more prominent role in promulgation and revision of court rules and in administration of the entire judicial system that does the CCA. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals hears appeals in criminal cases. Cases in which the death penalty was imposed are directly and automatically appealed to this court, bypassing the intermediate Courts of Appeals, which hear both civil and criminal cases. Texas has 14 Courts of Appeals , which have intermediate appellate jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases. Death penalty cases, however, are automatically appealed to

2000-503: A municipal court is a "court of record," the Legislature has authorized municipalities to adopt ordinances that give municipal courts concurrent jurisdiction over substandard building cases with county and/or district courts. The matter of civil jurisdiction has been further confused by the advent of civil penalties for conduct that can be prosecuted as a Class C misdemeanor (e.g. certain parking violations, red light camera violations). As

2125-496: A particular court of appeals' district, and has shifted counties between courts to balance the docket. The Texas Supreme Court seeks to even out imbalances in appellate caseloads on an ongoing basis with docket-equalization orders that provide for transfers of batches of cases from the busiest appeals courts to others with spare capacity. The First and the Fourteenth Courts of Appeal present a peculiarity: both have their seat at

2250-465: A particular court. The centralized docket system is, at least in principle, more efficient in allocation of judicial resources, and is legally feasible because trial judges in counties with multiple courts are authorized to switch benches and sit for each other. In appeals from such local court systems, the number of the district court provides no clue as to who signed the judgment. The judge must instead be identified by name. Additionally different orders in

2375-540: A special court composed of three women. This court, consisting of Ward, Hattie Leah Henenberg , and Ruth Virginia Brazzil , met for five months and ultimately ruled in favor of Woodmen of the World. On July 25, 1982, Ruby Kless Sondock became the court's first regular female justice, when she was appointed to replace Justice James G. Denton who had died of a heart attack. Sondock served the remainder of Denton's term, which ended on December 31, 1982, but did not seek election to

2500-470: A switch from Republican to Democratic majority control effective January 1, 2019 in Dallas and in the two Courts of Appeals in Houston, and major changes in the partisan makeup of other courts, including Austin and San Antonio. Supreme Court of Texas The Supreme Court of Texas is the court of last resort for civil matters (including juvenile delinquency cases, which are categorized as civil under

2625-543: A three-justice panel unless a hearing en banc is ordered (except where a particular court has only three justices assigned to it, in which instance all cases are automatically heard en banc ; an example is the 12th Court of Appeals). The en banc process is used to maintain consistency in the court's jurisprudence, to overrule existing precedent that is binding on individual panels, and to set new precedent on an unsettled question of substantive law or procedure. The Texas Legislature determines which counties are included within

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2750-611: A total of 21 concurring or dissenting opinions in FY 2018 while her counterpart in the First Court of Appeals, Chief Justice Sherry Radack, wrote none. Both presided over all-Republican courts, although one member on the First Court who had been elected as a Republican, Justice Terry Jennings, switched to the Democrats and also wrote large number of separate opinions (19). Statewide, there were 175 dissents and concurrences in Fiscal Year 2018, out of

2875-559: A total of 6,540 merits opinions. The total tally was 9,909, which includes per curiam opinions. As seen by the data for the Houston Courts of Appeals, individual justices can have a big impact on their respective court's comparative ranking, and on the statewide total. By definition, a dissent in the Court of Appeals does not decide the case. Dissents (and concurrences) are nevertheless important because they typically highlight unsettled areas of

3000-446: A trial de novo if the lower court is not a "court of record"). County court judges are not required to be licensed attorneys. Due to this, defendants in counties which only have the traditional constitutional county court may ask to have their cases transferred to that county's district court for trial if the district judge consents [1] . However, defendants in counties with the county court at law structure do not have this option, as

3125-580: A variety of judicial branch entities and courts, under the supervision of the Supreme Court of Texas and the Chief Justice. The office is led by an Administrative Director appointed by the Supreme Court and reporting to the Chief Justice. The State Bar of Texas (the Texas Bar) is an agency of the judiciary under the administrative control of the Texas Supreme Court. The Texas Bar is responsible for assisting

3250-514: Is Justice, rather than Associate Justice. Their counterparts on the Court of Criminal Appeals , however, use the title Judge. Hortense Sparks Ward , who became the first woman to pass the Texas Bar Exam in 1910, was appointed Special Chief Justice of an all-female Texas Supreme Court 15 years later. All of the court's male justices recused themselves from Johnson v. Darr , a 1924 case involving

3375-420: Is a party to the case." Courts of civil appeals in Texas were established in 1891 by constitutional amendment to help handle the increasing load of the court system. They had jurisdiction to hear appeals and mandamus petitions of any civil case from their region, with the regions decided by the legislature. The amendment provided that three-judge courts of appeals were to be created by legislature, and in 1892,

3500-507: Is asserted. Under Section 18, the number of JP's (and associated constables ; each county has as many constables as JP's) is dependent on the size of the county: The Texas Supreme Court has constitutional responsibility for the efficient administration of the judicial system and possesses the authority to make rules of administration applicable to the courts in addition to promulgation and amend rules governing procedure in trial and appellate courts, and rules of evidence. The chief justice of

3625-412: Is composed entirely of women. Justice Eva Guzman resigned from Place 9 effective Friday, June 11, 2021 at 3 PM after delivering a final dissenting opinion in the morning. Judicial Committee on Information Technology (JCIT) Created in 1997 JCIT was established to set standards and guidelines for the systematic implementation and integration of information technology into

3750-453: Is currently challenging Attorney General Ken Paxton in the GOP primary for that office. The vacancy created by Guzman's resignation was filled by Evan Young's appointment on November 10, 2021. The position of Chief Justice is designated Place 1 and is currently held by Nathan Hecht , the longest-serving member of the Court. He succeeded Wallace B. Jefferson , who is now a frequent advocate before

3875-568: Is renewable. All members of the Texas Supreme Court typically belong to the same party because all are elected in statewide races, rather than by the electorates of smaller appellate districts, as the justices on the intermediate appellate courts are. Although there are fourteen such courts, the state is geographically divided into thirteen. Two appellate courts (the 1st and the 14th, sitting in Houston) serve coextensive districts covering ten counties, including Harris County. Recent proposals to reorganize

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4000-1029: Is the Texas Supreme Court . While the Supreme Court (SCOTX) and the Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) each have nine members per the Texas Constitution , the sizes of the intermediate courts of appeals are set by statute and vary greatly, depending on historical case filings and so that the justices on each court can timely adjudicate the volume of cases regularly before them. The total number of intermediate appellate court seats currently stands at 80, ranging from three (Texarkana, El Paso, Waco, Eastland, and Tyler ), four (Amarillo and Beaumont), six (Austin and Corpus Christi-Edinburg), seven (Fort Worth and San Antonio), nine (Houston-1st and Houston-14th), and thirteen (Dallas) per court. Appellate courts consisting of more than three justices hear and decide cases in panels of three. Those courts with more than three justices sit in rotating panels and do not consistently sit with

4125-481: Is the primary policy-making body for the judiciary. It is responsible for studying and recommending changes to improve the administration of justice. The Administrative Director of the Office of Court Administration serves as Executive Director for the Council. The Texas Office of Court Administration provides information and research, technology services, budgetary and legal support, and other administrative assistance to

4250-595: The South Western Reporter ) includes reported opinions of the Supreme Court, the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the Courts of Appeals. The Texas Reports includes Supreme Court opinions until July 1962, and the Texas Criminal Reports includes Court of Criminal Appeals opinions until November 1962. There is no systematic reporting of decisions of trial courts. Court opinions can generally be freely accessed on

4375-461: The Governor of Texas appoints a replacement, subject to Senate confirmation, to serve out the unexpired term until December 31 after the next general election. The initial term of tenure is therefore often less than six years. Most of the current justices were originally appointed either by former Governor Rick Perry or by the current Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott , who is himself a former member of

4500-451: The November 3, 2020 general elections , all GOP candidates in statewide races won, including the four Supreme Court incumbents. While Republican incumbents suffered massive defeats in the Courts of Appeals on November 6, 2018, bringing about a switch of majorities from Republicans to Democrats in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, the three Republican incumbents on the Texas Supreme Court who faced

4625-1120: The Sixth Court of Civil Appeals in Texarkana. Then in 1911, the Seventh Court of Civil Appeals in Amarillo and the Eighth Court of Civil Appeals in El Paso were created. Soon after that, the Ninth Court of Civil Appeals was created in Beaumont in 1915, the Tenth was created in Waco in 1923, and the Eleventh was created in Eastland in 1925. In 1957, after Hurricane Audrey severely damaged the Galveston County Courthouse,

4750-455: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and thus skip the intermediate tier in the appellate court hierarchy. The term Court of Appeals (plural) should be capitalized because the generic term would include the two courts of last resorts also. The total number of intermediate appellate seats is 80, with membership ranging from three to 13 justices per court, as set by statute. All cases are heard by

4875-550: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals hears appeals involving criminal matters. Sometimes, the dividing line is murky, especially with respect to jurisdiction in mandamus and habeas corpus cases. See, e.g. Justice Willett's dissent in In re Reece , 341 S.W.3d 360 (Tex. 2011) (orig. proceeding). The Texas Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals are co-equal, unlike in Oklahoma where

5000-436: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals , and all cases involving capital punishment still do. In January 2019, a large number of newly elected justices took office, which required panels that included incumbents who were defeated in the November 2018 elections to be reconstituted, though in practice, this reconstitution caused little disruption in court productivity. Because of similar turnover in many metropolitan trial courts,

5125-585: The Texas Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals , the Justices of the intermediate Texas Courts of Appeals are elected in partisan elections to six-year terms. Some, however, are initially appointed by the Texas Governor to fill vacancies and then run as incumbents in the next election. In a small number of instances, (4-6% in recent years), the Texas Supreme Court transfers a case from one court to another. Under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 41.3,

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5250-498: The Texas judicial system . In Texas , all cases appealed from district and county courts, criminal and civil, go to one of the fourteen intermediate courts of appeals, with one exception: death penalty cases. The latter are taken directly to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals , the court of last resort for criminal matters in the State of Texas. The highest court for civil and juvenile matters

5375-506: The Woodmen of the World , and, since nearly every member of the Texas Bar was a member of that fraternal organization, paying personal insurance premiums that varied with the claims decided against it, no male judges or attorneys could be found to hear the case. After ten months of searching for suitable male replacements to decide the case, Governor Pat Neff decided on January 1, 1925, to appoint

5500-430: The indefinite article to imply one judge per court appeared in all subsequent constitutions. For example, Section 7 of Article V of the 1876 state constitution provided for 26 judicial districts (subject to the right of the Legislature to increase or diminish them), and that "a judge" would be elected for each district. This rigid constitutional language was finally fixed by a constitutional amendment in 1985, but by then,

5625-400: The 2018 midterm elections, which entailed heavy Republican losses at the trial court level likewise. Under the leadership of Governor Greg Abbott Texas Republicans have since moved to change the way Texas selects judges and justices in the major metropolitan jurisdictions. Their legislative initiative to amend the Texas constitution to forestall Democratic gains in third branch of government

5750-568: The Board of Law Examiners which, under instructions of the Supreme Court, administers the Texas bar exam. The Court has the last word in attorney disciplinary proceedings brought by the Commission for Lawyer Discipline, a committee of the State Bar of Texas , but rarely exercises discretionary review in such cases. The Supreme Court accepts fewer than 100 cases per year to be decided on the merits. In addition to its adjudicatory and administrative functions,

5875-773: The Clerk's Record and the Reporter's Record, however, is generally not posted online even if the parties' briefs are. Appellate opinions are also available through Google Scholar . Google Scholar presents them in a format that is more user-friendly for online viewing (compared to the double-spaced PDFs in small font released by the courts), hotlinks cited cases, and provides other functionality, such as identification of subsequent citing cases and ranking of search results by relevancy or time (recency) and time-frame delimited searches. Google Scholar versions now also include attorney information for each decided case, but they do not (as of May 2018) provide

6000-457: The Fifteenth Court of Appeals will hear appeals statewide in cases brought by or against a wide range of state government entities, against state officers and employees arising out of their official conduct, and "matters in which a party to the proceeding files a petition, motion, or other pleading challenging the constitutionality or validity of a state statute or rule, and the attorney general

6125-470: The Fifteenth Court of Appeals. In June 2024, the Governor began appointing judges to the Fifteenth Court of Appeals. These courts will be open for cases on September 1, 2024. In August 2024, the Texas Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the appellate business court's creation. In addition to hearing appeals from certain defined case types brought in the new Texas trial level business courts,

6250-595: The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals before his term on the Texas Supreme Court had expired, thus creating a vacancy and an opportunity for the Governor to fill it with an already-vetted candidate of his own. All appellate court races were clearly driven by party-line voting. That worked in favor of Republican incumbents at the statewide level as usual, but against Republican incumbents in the courts of appeals, whose members are each elected from one of fourteen appellate districts. Some of those districts favored Democrats in

6375-3523: The Fifth and Sixth Courts. First Court of Appeals of Texas – Houston (formerly Galveston), covering Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Colorado, Fort Bend, Galveston, Grimes, Harris, Waller, and Washington counties Second Court of Appeals of Texas – Fort Worth, covering Archer, Clay, Cooke, Denton, Hood, Jack, Montague, Parker, Tarrant, Wichita, Wise, and Young counties Third Court of Appeals of Texas – Austin, covering Bastrop, Bell, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Coke, Comal, Concho, Fayette, Hays, Irion, Lampasas, Lee, Llano, McCulloch, Milam, Mills, Runnels, San Saba, Schleicher, Sterling, Tom Green, Travis, and Williamson counties Fourth Court of Appeals of Texas – San Antonio, covering Atascosa, Bandera, Bexar, Brooks, Dimmit, Duval, Edwards, Frio, Gillespie, Guadalupe, Jim Hogg, Jim Wells, Karnes, Kendall, Kerr, Kimble, Kinney, La Salle, Mason, Maverick, McMullen, Medina, Menard, Real, Starr, Sutton, Uvalde, Val Verde, Webb, Wilson, Zapata, and Zavala counties Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas – Dallas, covering Collin, Dallas, Grayson, Hunt, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties Sixth Court of Appeals of Texas – Texarkana, covering Bowie, Camp, Cass, Delta, Fannin, Franklin, Gregg, Harrison, Hopkins, Hunt, Lamar, Marion, Morris, Panola, Red River, Rusk, Titus, Upshur, and Wood counties Seventh Court of Appeals of Texas – Amarillo, covering Armstrong, Bailey, Briscoe, Carson, Castro, Childress, Cochran, Collingsworth, Cottle, Crosby, Dallam, Deaf Smith, Dickens, Donley, Floyd, Foard, Garza, Gray, Hale, Hall, Hansford, Hardeman, Hartley, Hemphill, Hockley, Hutchinson, Kent, King, Lamb, Lipscomb, Lubbock, Lynn, Moore, Motley, Ochiltree, Oldham, Parmer, Potter, Randall, Roberts, Sherman, Swisher, Terry, Wheeler, Wilbarger, and Yoakum counties. Eighth Court of Appeals of Texas – El Paso, covering Andrews, Brewster, Crane, Crockett, Culberson, El Paso, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, Loving, Pecos, Presidio, Reagan, Reeves, Terrell, Upton, Ward, and Winkler counties Ninth Court of Appeals of Texas – Beaumont, covering Hardin, Jasper, Jefferson, Liberty, Montgomery, Newton, Orange, Polk, San Jacinto, and Tyler counties Tenth Court of Appeals of Texas – Waco, covering Bosque, Brazos, Burleson, Coryell, Ellis, Falls, Freestone, Hamilton, Hill, Johnson, Leon, Limestone, Madison, McLennan, Navarro, Robertson, Somervell, and Walker counties Eleventh Court of Appeals of Texas – Eastland, covering Baylor, Borden, Brown, Callahan, Coleman, Comanche, Dawson, Eastland, Ector, Erath, Fisher, Gaines, Glasscock, Haskell, Howard, Jones, Knox, Martin, Midland, Mitchell, Nolan, Palo Pinto, Scurry, Shackelford, Stephens, Stonewall, Taylor, and Throckmorton counties Twelfth Court of Appeals of Texas – Tyler, covering Anderson, Angelina, Cherokee, Gregg, Henderson, Houston, Nacogdoches, Rains, Rusk, Sabine, San Augustine, Shelby, Smith, Trinity, Upshur, Van Zandt, and Wood counties Thirteenth Court of Appeals of Texas – Corpus Christi and Edinburg, covering Aransas, Bee, Calhoun, Cameron, De Witt, Goliad, Gonzales, Hidalgo, Jackson, Kenedy, Kleberg, Lavaca, Live Oak, Matagorda, Nueces, Refugio, San Patricio, Victoria, Wharton, and Willacy counties Fourteenth Court of Appeals of Texas – Houston, covering Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Colorado, Fort Bend, Galveston, Grimes, Harris, Waller, and Washington counties Fifteenth Court of Appeals of Texas – statewide jurisdiction over civil appeals to which

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6500-523: The Harris County district courts before she was appointed to the intermediate court of appeals, and the third (Huddle) previously served on an intermediate court of appeals in Houston. As of September 2019, women jurists filled almost half of the 80 intermediate appellate positions. Some of the fourteen intermediate courts of appeals have female majorities. The Fourth Court of Appeals, based in San Antonio,

6625-478: The JCIT Chair has been Justice Rebecca Simmons . Two members of the Court (Chief Justice Hecht and Justice Boyd) were up for re-election in 2020, and two more (Busby and Bland) were on the ballot to seek voter approval to serve out the remainder of their respective unexpired terms, following their appointment to supreme court vacancies by Governor Abbott. Although there was some speculation about Texas turning blue in

6750-473: The JCIT conversation: expansion and governance of electronic filing; the evolution and proliferation of court case management systems; and the evolution and governance of technology standards for reporting and sharing information across systems in civil, family, juvenile, and criminal justice. The Founding Chair of JCIT from 1997 to 2009 was Peter S. Vogel, a partner at Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP in Dallas, and since 2009

6875-473: The Supreme Court in her own right. Rose Spector became the first woman elected to the court in 1992 and served until 1998 when she was defeated by Harriet O'Neill . Following the recent departure of Eva Guzman , the Texas Supreme Court currently has three women members. One of them served as a family court judge in Fort Worth (Lehrmann), the second (Bland) was a district judge in the civil trial division of

7000-685: The Supreme Court is superior to the highest criminal court. Article V, Section 1, states: The judicial power of this State shall be vested in one Supreme Court, in one Court of Criminal Appeals, in Courts of Appeals, in District Courts, in County Courts, in Commissioners Courts, in Courts of Justices of the Peace, and in such other courts as may be provided by law. The Legislature may establish such other courts as it may deem necessary and prescribe

7125-529: The Supreme Court promulgates, and occasionally revises, court rules of procedure, which include the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure (TRCP), the Texas Rules of Evidence (TRE), and the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure (TRAP). [1] The Texas Supreme Court is the only state supreme court in the United States in which the manner in which it denies discretionary review can actually imply approval or disapproval of

7250-518: The Supreme Court reversed his signature trial verdict against Merck & Co. on behalf of a widow whose husband died after taking Vioxx . After Lanier suffered a second high-profile loss of a Vioxx case, in which the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston concluded in MERCK & CO., INC. v. Ernst, a wrongful death case by a widow, that Lanier failed to show that the ingestion of Vioxx caused

7375-460: The Supreme Court, presiding judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals, chief justices of each of the 14 courts of appeals, and judges of each of the trial courts are generally responsible for the administration of their respective courts. There is a local administrative district judge in each county, as well as a local administrative statutory county court judge in each county that has a statutory county court. In counties with two or more district courts,

7500-681: The Texas Family Code) in the U.S. state of Texas . A different court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals , is the court of last resort in criminal matters. The Court has its seat at the Supreme Court Building on the State Capitol grounds in Austin, Texas. The Texas Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and eight justices. All nine positions are elected, with a term of office of six years and no term limit. The Texas Supreme Court

7625-447: The Texas Government Code outline the duties of these Courts and their officers. Municipal courts in Texas come into contact with more defendants than all other Texas courts combined. The subject matter of municipal courts relates to crimes relating to public safety and quality of life issues. In recent years, municipal courts and justice court in Texas have become the primary venue for acts of misconduct committed by children. Within

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7750-587: The Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure (TRAPs) and the local rules. An even more bizarre situation occurs in East and North Texas, where the 6th Court has four counties – Gregg, Rusk, Upshur, and Wood – which overlap with the 12th Court, and also has Hunt County overlapping with the 5th Court. The Texas district courts are the trial courts of general jurisdiction . The district court has exclusive jurisdiction over felony cases, cases involving title to land, and election contest cases. It shares jurisdiction with

7875-488: The Texas Supreme Court faced re-election in 2014. Three of the four sitting Supreme Court justices, Chief Justice Nathan Hecht , Justice Jeff Brown and Justice Phil Johnson , were required to defeat challengers in a March primary before the general election in November. The candidates challenging the incumbent Supreme Court justices, according to reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission , were recruited for

8000-412: The Texas Supreme Court in overseeing all attorneys licensed to practice law in Texas . In Texas, state judges are elected in partisan elections. Trial judges are elected for 4 years, and appellate court judges are elected for 6 years. The Governor fills vacancies until the next election, and judges traditionally leave office before their last term is completed. All state-wide elective positions in

8125-404: The Texas Supreme Court itself because the high court refused applications for writ of error rather than denying them and thereby signaled that it approved of their holdings as the law of the state. While Texas's unique practice saved the state supreme court from having to hear relatively minor cases just to create uniform statewide precedents on those issues, it also makes for lengthy citations to

8250-416: The Texas appellate court system by consolidating districts, and creating a specialty court of appeals for government-entity cases, failed in the Texas legislature's 2021 regular session. All members of the court are elected to six-year terms in statewide partisan elections . Because their terms are staggered, only some of the justices are up for re-election in any one election cycle. When a vacancy arises,

8375-510: The amount in controversy is over $ 500 but not over $ 200,000. However, unlike constitutional county courts, the jurisdiction of Statutory County Courts can vary from county to county. For example, in Dallas County, Statutory County Courts have jurisdiction nearly as broad as that of District Courts. In Harris County, the genera jurisdictional cap is $ 200,000 but these courts also have exclusive jurisdiction of eminent domain proceedings regardless of

8500-603: The amount in controversy. In Travis County, the amount in controversy for matters the Statutory County Court can entertain ranges from $ 500 to $ 250,000. There is no clear policy reason for the varying jurisdictions of the Statutory County Courts. Under the authority granted it by Section 1 of Article V, the Legislature has allowed for the creation of municipal courts in each incorporated city in Texas , by voter approval creating such court. Chapters 29 and 30 of

8625-658: The appellate district number -- [1st Dist.] or [14th Dist.] -- in addition to the name of the city. The Texas Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and eight justices. All positions are elective. While the chief has special administrative responsibilities, each member has one vote and may issue a dissenting or concurring opinion. Granted cases are assigned to justices' chambers for opinion authorship by draw. Grants require four votes. Judgments are rendered by majority vote. Per curiam opinions may be issued if at least six justices agree. Petitions for review are automatically denied after 30 days unless at least one justice pulls them off

8750-401: The city limits, these courts have shared jurisdiction with the JP courts on Class C criminal misdemeanor cases, and have exclusive jurisdiction on cases involving city ordinances. Municipal courts have limited civil jurisdiction over public matters relating to public safety (e.g., dangerous dog determinations). Confusion surrounding a municipal court's civil jurisdiction is complicated that if

8875-488: The constitutionally mandated structure of single-judge trial courts. However, these procedures are still not as flexible as simply merging all judges in a county into a single district court, and purported failures to properly follow such procedures occasionally result in another basis for appeal. Large counties typically assign newly filed lawsuits randomly to individual courts to defeat efforts at judge-shopping (a form of forum-shopping ), and require re-filed cases involving

9000-469: The county court at law judges are required to have law degrees. Section 15 states that the County Court shall be a "court of record". Section 16 states that the County Court "has jurisdiction as provided by law"; Section 17 states that the County Court shall hold terms as provided by law and that County Court juries shall consist of six persons, but in civil cases a jury shall not be empaneled unless one of

9125-420: The county court level where the case results in a trial de novo. The perfection of the appeal vacates the judgment of the JP court, which means that the higher court does not reverse or affirm the JP court when it resolves the appeal. The case is instead retried on appeal, but the jurisdictional limits of the JP court, rather than those of the court of record, apply. Appeals from JP court also differ from appeals to

9250-490: The county courts, and in some case justice of the peace courts, for civil cases (its lowest limit for hearing a case is a mere $ 200 in controversy, while JP courts can hear cases up to $ 10,000). Family law jurisdiction varies depending on the existence of a county court-at-law; in some counties, the district courts share jurisdiction over divorces, child custody and support matters, adoptions and child welfare cases with county courts at law. Probate jurisdiction varies, depending on

9375-438: The court procedure rules required pending mandamus cases to be abated and remanded for the new trial court judge to reconsider the challenged order of his or her predecessor. The overall effect of the November 2018 Democratic sweep of the appellate courts in Houston, Dallas, and Austin was to make the intermediate appellate judiciary more diverse in terms of party affiliation, gender, and race/ethnicity, as can be seen by comparing

9500-503: The court was created recently, but the number alone provides no clue as to location of the new court and the appellate district within which it is located. As such, a comprehensive list of Dallas courts can be found to include 60 courts in Dallas. Further sections of Article V spell out the basic requirements for each court's jurisdiction and for its officers. The Supreme Court of Texas hears appeals involving civil matters and does not hear any appeals involving criminal matters except when

9625-411: The court. Like the judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals , all members of the Texas Supreme Court are currently Republicans . The most recent appointees are Evan Young , Rebeca Huddle , Jane Bland , Jimmy Blacklock , and Brett Busby . Brett Busby and Jane Bland are former Court of Appeals justices from Houston, whose re-election bids failed in November 2018 when Democrats won all of

9750-403: The courts of appeals in that they require the posting of bond. This makes such appeals more onerous to losing defendants than appeals from county courts to the court of appeals unless the defendant qualifies to proceed in forma pauperis. In criminal cases, cases beginning in justice court cannot be appealed beyond the county level court unless the fine is more than $ 100 or a constitutional matter

9875-451: The death of his client's spouse. Lanier's publicly criticized the Texas Supreme Court stating that it employs "a simpleton approach that basically white washes the trial, ignores the evidence, and is very conclusion based". Lanier responded to the appellate setbacks in a press release: Activist judges are protecting corporate executives and stripping away the rights of widows and every other victim of corporate misconduct…This decision

10000-527: The defendant is a juvenile. Under Texas law, juvenile proceedings (even those which would be criminal if filed against an adult) are considered civil matters under the Texas Family Code; thus, the Texas Supreme Court hears such appeals, but generally defers to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) in matters where Texas criminal statutes have been interpreted. The Supreme Court also maintains responsibility for attorney licensing and discipline, and plays

10125-458: The demographic statistics reported by the Office of Court Administration for 2018 and 2019. There are fourteen appellate districts each of which encompasses multiple counties and is presided over by a Texas Court of Appeals denominated by number: The counties of Gregg, Rusk, Upshur, and Wood are in the jurisdictions of both the Sixth and Twelfth Courts, while Hunt County is in the jurisdiction of both

10250-412: The dockets of already busy county courts at law. Many major cities—such as those in Austin, El Paso, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio—have chosen to convert their municipal courts to courts of record (this also requires voter approval) to close this loophole. Municipal court cases are generally appealed to the county court level, but cannot be appealed beyond that level unless the fine is more than $ 100 or

10375-473: The election and funded by a Houston plaintiff lawyer and Ali Davari, owner of two strip clubs: Sexy City and Erotic Zone. Texas for Lawsuit Reform commented on the Texas election by saying, "Plaintiff trial lawyers are making an unprecedented attempt to regain the control of the Supreme Court that they enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s, when Texas was known as 'The Lawsuit Capitol of the World.'" Also, an airing of Sixty Minutes entitled Justice for Sale gave

10500-422: The entire Texas electorate in statewide races won comfortably. Incumbent John Devine prevailed over his opponent R.K. Sandill, a sitting district court judge of Asian-American descent in Houston, with 53.75% of the vote and secured a second term. Justice Jeff Brown beat off a challenge by Democratic candidate Kathy Cheng (who unlike her fellow Democratic challengers did not have comparable judicial experience) with

10625-437: The executive and judicial branch are currently controlled by Republicans because the state as a whole is solidly red. Appellate and trial court judges, however, are elected from districts, and some of those districts are more competitive than Texas as a whole, and some even have a clear Democratic majority. In the November 6, 2018 midterm elections numerous Republican appellate justices lost to Democratic challengers, entailing in

10750-474: The existence of a statutory probate court in the county. In some larger counties, such as Harris County, the district courts are specialized, with designated sets of courts hearing criminal cases, juvenile cases, family matters, and non-family civil cases in four different court houses surrounding the square with the underground jury assembly facility, which suffered severe flood damage in Hurricane Harvey . In

10875-407: The expeditious movement of court caseloads, and other administrative duties. eFileTexas.gov is the official electronic court filing (e-filing) system. Each county maintains (or does not maintain) their own docket management and retrieval systems, similar to PACER for the federal government. There is no longer an officially published reporter . West's Texas Cases (a Texas-specific version of

11000-407: The federal district courts sitting in Texas and the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals make guesses as to how the Texas Supreme Court would rule on an issue of state law that is still unsettled due to a conflict among the intermediate courts of appeals. Such an issue may also be referred to the Texas Supreme Court by certified question, but this procedure is rarely employed. Like the members of

11125-525: The federal government, a trial court can have multiple judges sitting in separate departments who all share coequal authority to act in the name of the same trial court. Each district court is uniquely numbered on a statewide basis according to its sequence of creation by the Legislature (in other words, the numbers do not reflect the courts' geography). The same is not true of county-level courts, which are numbered sequentially in individual counties. The first Texas state constitution of 1845 tried to ameliorate

11250-435: The high court on behalf of private clients, as are several other former members of the Court. The other eight position numbers have no special significance except for identification purposes on the ballot. Informally, justices are ranked by seniority, and their profiles appear on the Court's website in that order. Unlike their counterparts on the U.S. Supreme Court, the official title of incumbents holding Place 2 through Place 9

11375-410: The inflexibility of a single-judge trial court model by also authorizing judges to "exchange benches or hold court for each other when they deem it expedient." Relying on this language, the Legislature enacted a variety of procedural laws over the years to get as close as possible to a de facto unified district court in the urban counties that needed multiple district judges, while remaining faithful to

11500-462: The judicial races in that election. Blacklock previously served Governor Greg Abbott as general counsel. Huddle was a justice on the First Court of Appeals in Houston. Blacklock replaced Don Willett , who now sits on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals , the federal appellate court that hears appeals from federal district courts in Texas. Busby succeeds Phil Johnson , who retired in 2018, and

11625-680: The jurisdiction and organization thereof, and may conform the jurisdiction of the district and other inferior courts thereto. As such, the Texas Legislature has created additional courts to address caseload pressures driven by population growth in different areas of the state. District courts are (usually) consecutively numbered regardless of whether they are specialize to handle criminal, civil, or family matters (though in some counties, Criminal District Courts have separate numbering systems, an example being Dallas County which has seven such courts numbered 1 through 11). The highest numbers indicate that

11750-608: The late 19th century. According to Roscoe Pound , 23 of the 34 states in the Union adhered to that model on the eve of the American Civil War . Accordingly, in 1836, this then-commonplace and familiar model was duly written into the Constitution of the Republic of Texas . Section 2 of Article IV provided for "not less than three nor more than eight" judicial districts, and that "a judge" would be appointed for each district. Similar clauses using

11875-429: The lawyers answer on the spot. On rare occasions, all the justices of a court of appeals sit together en banc to reconsider a panel decision or to assure consistency in that court's jurisprudence. En banc consideration is 'disfavored" according to appellate rule 41.2(b). The en banc process is also used to overrule prior precedent of the same court which its panels would otherwise follow. The precedents established by

12000-673: The legislature created 3 courts of appeals: The First Court of Civil Appeals in Galveston, the Second Court of Civil Appeals in Fort Worth, and the Third Court of Civil Appeals in Austin. In 1893, the legislature created the Fourth Court of Civil Appeals in San Antonio out of territory taken from the first and third courts, and the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas. In 1907, the legislature created

12125-433: The legislature increased the number of judges of various courts and authorized courts of appeals to sit in "panels" of not fewer than three judges. On September 1, 1981, all Courts of Civil Appeals were given criminal jurisdiction, and in 1985 a constitutional amendment was passed so that all courts were known as "Courts of Appeals" instead of "Courts of Civil Appeals." Until 1981, all criminal appeals cases went directly to

12250-669: The legislature moved the First Court of Appeals to Houston (where it sits today) and required Harris County to provide facilities. It was not until the 1970s that any more courts were created with the Twelfth Court of Civil Appeals in Tyler, the Thirteenth in Corpus Christi and Edinburg, and the Fourteenth in Houston. The latter exercises concurrent jurisdiction with the First Court. In 1977,

12375-520: The merits of the lower court's decision and in turn may affect the geographic extent of the precedential effect of that decision. In March 1927, the Texas Legislature enacted a law directing the Texas Supreme Court to summarily refuse to hear applications for writs of error when it believed the Court of Appeals opinion correctly stated the law. Thus, since June 1927, over 4,100 decisions of the Texas Courts of Appeals have become valid binding precedent of

12500-402: The metaphorical conveyor belt. To serve on the court, a candidate must be at least 35 years of age, a citizen of Texas, licensed to practice law in Texas, and must have practiced law (or have been a lawyer and a judge of a court of record together) for at least ten years. The Clerk of the Court , currently Blake A. Hawthorne, is appointed by the justices and serves a four-year term, which

12625-420: The middle of the county courthouse, and granting each district court concurrent jurisdiction over the entire county. The Dallas County courthouse burned down on January 7, 1890, and both district courts reopened a month later in temporary rented quarters which were entirely inside of the 44th District. This arrangement was immediately challenged, and in response, the Texas Supreme Court ruled on March 12, 1890 that

12750-554: The opinions of the Courts of Appeals, since the subsequent writ history of the case must always be noted (e.g., no writ, writ refused, writ denied, etc.) in order for the reader to determine at a glance whether the cited opinion is binding precedent only in the district of the Court of Appeals in which it was decided, or binding precedent for the entire state. Citations to cases from the Houston-based Courts of Appeals are also longer than others because they require identification of

12875-587: The parties demands it and pays a jury fee or files an affidavit stating that it is unable to do so. Since the county judge is also responsible for presiding over the Commissioners Court (the main executive and legislative body of the county), in 94 counties the Texas Legislature has established county courts at law to relieve the county judge of judicial duties. The first multi-county statutory county court (composed of Fisher, Mitchell, and Nolan counties)

13000-517: The re-purposed historic 1910 Harris County Courthouse in Houston and exercise concurrent jurisdiction over the same ten counties, the largest of which is Harris County . Parties who want to appeal a judgment or other order from a trial court in these counties are required to state in their notice of appeal that they wish to appeal to either the First or the Fourteenth Court of Appeals, and then have to wait for

13125-410: The result of random assignment to one or the other. They also have to disclose any prior appellate history of the same case in either one of the two courts. Both courts are served by the same clerk, currently Christopher Prine, whose office will issue an initial letter with instructions, along with the appellate docket number that will also reveal which court an appellant has drawn. Appeals are governed by

13250-585: The same case may have been signed by different judges. In another unique twist, the Constitution grants the Legislature the authority to determine which court handles probate matters. Thus, in ten of the 15 largest counties (specifically, the counties of Bexar, Collin, Dallas, Denton, El Paso, Galveston, Harris, Hidalgo, Tarrant, and Travis) the Legislature has established one or more Statutory Probate Courts. These specialized courts handle matters of probate, guardianship, trust, and mental health. In some counties,

13375-404: The same justices. In some cases, the justices will hear arguments from the parties' lawyers in what is called oral argument. The lawyers present their arguments one at a time, typically for twenty minutes each, followed by a brief rebuttal from the appellant, the party complaining of the decision of the lower court. During the lawyers' presentations, the justice commonly interject with questions that

13500-433: The same parties to be transferred back to the original randomly-drawn court. Some of these multi-court jurisdictions (e.g., Bexar County/San Antonio) use a centralized docket system, which undercuts the ability to predict which judge will hear a particular motion or try a case, because the assignment of the matter will depend on the availability of judges on a given day. In that system all cases retain their formal assignment to

13625-451: The same vote margin. The high court's most recent appointed member at the time, Jimmy Blacklock, defeated Steven Kirkland, who like Sandill served as a district court judge in Houston, with 53.17% of the vote. Neither Sandill nor Kirkland were up for reelection that year. Justice Blacklock faced the electorate for the first time, having recently been appointed. Blacklock was Governor Abbott's replacement for Justice Don Willett, who ascended to

13750-408: The smaller counties, a single district court handles all types of cases. In rural areas, as many as five counties share a single district court; urban counties. One of the most unusual features of Texas trial courts, including district courts, is the tradition of having only one judge per trial court. Single-judge trial courts were the dominant form of American state trial court organization well into

13875-427: The state constitution did not prohibit both Dallas County district courts from operating from a shared location inside the same district. This is why today, a typical Texas urban courthouse is home to many single-judge trial courts of concurrent jurisdiction over the same county, each of which is legally organized as a separate court with its own unique name and number. In contrast, in virtually all other U.S. states and

14000-608: The state is a party and appeals from the Texas Business Court Collectively the Texas Courts of Appeals issue close to 10,000 opinions a year (9,909 in FY 2018) which are almost equally divided between civil and criminal cases. The number is high because appeals to these courts are "of right" and each case must be decided with an opinion, even if the disposition is in the form of a voluntary dismissal or an involuntary dismissal for noncompliance with briefing rules or

14125-431: The state's shortage of proper law schools and law libraries in that era, as well as the traditional preference of Texans for "' self-help ' justice as practiced in the courts of 'Judge Winchester ' or 'Judge Lynch .'" Texas is the only state besides Oklahoma to have a bifurcated appellate system at the highest level. The Texas Supreme Court hears appeals involving civil matters (which include juvenile cases), and

14250-481: The statutory probate courts also hear condemnation cases. There are no jurisdictional monetary limits on the types of lawsuits that a statutory probate court may hear. As such, their jurisdiction at times overlaps that of the district court. Not to be confused with County Courts at Law, which are created by statute, there is a County Court for each of the 254 counties in Texas . The Texas Constitution states that "[t]here shall be established in each county in this State

14375-421: The tradition of one judge per court was thoroughly entrenched. As a result, instead of adding more judges to existing courts in response to population growth, the Texas Legislature adds more courts. In February 1889, the Legislature tried to constitutionally meet the need for two district court judges in both Dallas and Bexar Counties by dividing each county into two districts, running the district boundary through

14500-414: The transferee court must apply controlling precedents of the court from which the case was sent, if they exist. All courts of appeals retain the discretion to recall retired justices to assist writing any backlog of opinions in the court. In 2023, a law was passed creating a new appellate level court with jurisdiction over appeals from the new Texas business courts and state government related litigation,

14625-421: The trial and appellate courts in Texas. JCIT approaches this mission by providing a forum for state-local, inter-branch, and public-private collaboration, and development of policy recommendations for the Supreme Court of Texas. Court technology, and the information it carries, are sprawling topics, and Texas is a diverse state with decentralized funding and decision-making for trial court technology. JCIT provides

14750-427: The two courts of last resort on questions of law are binding on all state courts, and are also followed by federal courts when they hear cases governed by Texas state law. The federal courts sitting in Texas apply state law when the case is not controlled by federal law or by the law of another jurisdiction based contractual choice of law or other basis for application of another's jurisdiction's law. Not infrequently

14875-871: The web from the various courts' websites, with appellate opinions generally being available from 1997–2002 onwards. In 2014 the Texas Court of Appeals's web sites were updated and migrated to new web addresses (with automatic forwarding from the old URLs). Each court's website allows for case and opinion searches using various types of input in addition to cause number, such as party name, attorney name, attorney bar number, file date/date range, and full-text search using key words. All current opinion are now released as pdf documents, rather than html, and thus standardized, although different courts use different templates and citation/footnoting styles, which makes for some degree of variation in appearance. Additionally, courts of appeals are now also making procedural orders, briefs, and motions available online. The record on appeal, consisting of

15000-792: Was created in 2013. In most counties with courts at law, the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the constitutional county court has been transferred to the county courts at law. Unlike the county judge, judges of the county courts of law are required to be attorneys. The county courts at law may hear both civil and criminal matters, or hear them separately, depending on how the Legislature has structured them (Dallas, Denton, El Paso, Harris, and Tarrant counties have "county criminal courts" or "county criminal courts at law" that hear only criminal cases). Statutory County Courts at Law, not to be confused with Constitutional County Courts, generally have broader jurisdiction than constitutional county courts. Statutory County Courts can generally entertain lawsuits in which

15125-471: Was established in 1846 to replace the Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas . It meets in downtown Austin, Texas in an office building near the Texas State Capitol . By statute, the Texas Supreme Court has administrative control over the State Bar of Texas , an agency of the judiciary. The Texas Supreme Court has the sole authority to license attorneys in Texas. It also appoints the members of

15250-590: Was handed down by a group of judges who regularly accept campaign contributions from law firms representing corporations that appear in their courts. We will appeal this decision to the United States Supreme Court if necessary. All judicial challengers recruited and funded by the Texas plaintiff lawyers lost to the incumbent Texas Supreme Court justices who won the 2014 Texas election. Texas Supreme Court History: Links to Resources Texas Courts of Appeals The Texas Courts of Appeals are part of

15375-422: Was only slightly higher in 2019, 1.9% for concurrences (including opinions concurring and dissenting) and 2% for dissents. Similar numbers followed in 2020. Party affiliation and mixed composition are not the only sources of disagreement that manifest themselves in dissents. Kem Thompson Frost, the Chief Justice of the Fourteenth Court of Appeals, is known as an independent thinker and prolific dissenter. She wrote

15500-526: Was sworn in on  March 20, 2019. Jane Bland was appointed in September 2019 to fill the vacancy left by Jeff Brown , who resigned from the court to accept appointment to a U.S. district court bench. Rebeca Huddle was appointed in October 2020 to replace Paul Green , who retired from the Court on August 31, 2020. Eva Guzman, the second-most senior member of the Court at the time, resigned on June 11, 2021. She

15625-434: Was unsuccessful, but a commission was formed to look at alternative selection methods. The six-year terms of office of the members of the Texas Supreme Court are staggered. Three Republican incumbents—Green, Guzman, and Lehrmann—were up for reelection in 2016 and won easily, as was expected, given the statewide nature of their electoral constituency in a Red state. Debra Lehrmann had been challenged by Michael Massengale, then

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