Government of New York - Court System

Court System

The court system in New York tends to produce mild confusion for outsiders. As in Maryland and the District of Columbia, the highest court is called "Court of Appeals" instead of "Supreme Court." Instead of the trial court being called "Superior Court," the New York court system labels the trial court "Supreme Court." In fact, "superior" and "supreme" are variations on the same theme. In the original Latin, "supreme" (supremo/-a) means "uppermost" or "highest," while "superior" can mean either "upper"/"higher" or "uppermost" / "highest" (hence, "Lake Superior," so named by the French because it is the uppermost or highest of the Great Lakes not because it is the largest lake, although that is the case).

In naming its trial courts, New York simply chose "supreme" instead of "superior." (Some states, such as Michigan and Hawaii, use the term "circuit court" instead of "superior".) The consternation this causes for non-New Yorkers arises from the fact that most superior courts are no longer truly "superior," as much as it does from most states reserving "supreme" for their highest appellate court. That is, historically, county superior courts - like New York's county supreme courts - were the highest level of trial court, overseeing a network of inferior trial courts (e.g., municipal courts, recorder's courts, courts of referees and commissioners, etc.,), the decisions of which could be appealed within the trial court system to the superior court. Most states have long-since consolidated their inferior trial courts, however, so that they now have just the one trial court - the superior, circuit or supreme court.

New York's intermediate appellate court, between the New York State Supreme Courts (county by county) and the New York Court of Appeals, is the New York State Supreme Court - Appellate Division. Local courts in towns and villages are called Justice Courts. These courts are the starting point for all criminal cases outside cities, and handle a variety of other matters including small claims, traffic ticket cases and local zoning matters. Along with the unusual names for the courts, judges in Supreme Court and the Justice Courts are called Justices, while on the Court of Appeals (and in other courts such as Family Court, County Court, and Surrogates Court), they are called Judges.