United States
Many states have a county court, which may be purely administrative (such as in Missouri) or may have jurisdiction over criminal cases such as felonies (such as in New York).
In those states with an administrative county court, the body acts as the executive agency for the local government. For example, Harry S Truman was county judge of Jackson County, Missouri in the 1930s, an executive position rather than a judicial post.
In the states that have a judicial county court, such as New York, it generally handles trials for felonies, as well as appeals of misdemeanors from local courts and some small claims cases. It is a court of original jurisdiction, and thus handles mostly trials of accused felons. The New York County Court "is established in each county outside New York City. It is authorized to handle the prosecution of all crimes committed within the County. The County Court also has limited jurisdiction in civil cases ...." More specifically, the New York County Court is:
authorized to handle the prosecution of all crimes committed within the county. It has exclusive authority to handle trials in felony matters and shares authority with the local city, town and village courts to handle trials in misdemeanor cases (offenses punishable by less than one year in prison) and other minor offenses and violations. The County Court also has limited authority to hear civil cases involving monetary awards of $25,000 or less. Although the County Court is primarily a trial court, in the Third and Fourth Departments it also has appellate jurisdiction over cases originating in City, Town and Village Courts. —New York State Court System (emphasis and internal links added)In New York City, the New York City Criminal Court handles such jurisdiction.
Otherwise in the United States, the courts of original jurisdiction in most states have jurisdiction over a particular county, parish, shire, or borough; but instead of being called "county court" they are called "superior court" or "circuit court". Multiple courts of typically limited original jurisdiction within a county are usually called "district courts" or, if located in and serving a particular municipality, "municipal courts"; and are subordinate to the county superior or circuit court. In New York, 'superior'/'circuit' courts are called "supreme court".
Read more about this topic: County Court
Famous quotes related to united states:
“The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name.... We must be impartial in thought as well as in action ... a nation that neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“The parallel between antifeminism and race prejudice is striking. The same underlying motives appear to be at work, namely fear, jealousy, feelings of insecurity, fear of economic competition, guilt feelings, and the like. Many of the leaders of the feminist movement in the nineteenth-century United States clearly understood the similarity of the motives at work in antifeminism and race discrimination and associated themselves with the anti slavery movement.”
—Ashley Montagu (b. 1905)
“We are told to maintain constitutions because they are constitutions, and what is laid down in those constitutions?... Certain great fundamental ideas of right are common to the world, and ... all laws of man’s making which trample on these ideas, are null and void—wrong to obey, right to disobey. The Constitution of the United States recognizes human slavery; and makes the souls of men articles of purchase and of sale.”
—Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842–1932)
“Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada are the horns, the head, the neck, the shins, and the hoof of the ox, and the United States are the ribs, the sirloin, the kidneys, and the rest of the body.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)