The New Hampshire Supreme Court is the supreme court of the U. S. state of New Hampshire and sole appellate court of the state. The Supreme Court is seated in the state capital, Concord. The Court is composed of a Chief Justice and four Associate Justices appointed by the Governor and Executive Council to serve during "good behavior" until retirement or the age of seventy. The senior member of the Court is able to specially assign lower-court judges, as well as retired justices, to fill vacancies on the Court.
The Supreme Court is the administrative authority over the state's judicial system. The Court has both mandatory and discretionary appellate jurisdiction. In 2000, the Court created a "Three Judges Expedited" or 3JX panel to issue decisions in cases of less precedential value, with its decision only binding on the present case. In 2004, the court began accepting all appeals from the trial courts for the first time in 25 years.
From 1776 to 1876, the then four-member court was known as the "Superior Court of Judicature," until the name was changed by an act of the New Hampshire General Court. In 1901, the number of justices was increased from four to five. Two Supreme Court justices have been the only two state officials to be impeached in New Hampshire: Justice Langdon resigned prior to his trial in 1790, and Chief Justice David Brock was acquitted by the New Hampshire Senate in 2000.
Retired Associate Justice David Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States served on the New Hampshire Supreme Court from 1983 to 1990.
Read more about New Hampshire Supreme Court: History, Jurisdiction, Organization, Current Justices, Impeachment of Justices, Committees of The Court, Notable Justices
Famous quotes containing the words supreme court, hampshire, supreme and/or court:
“The Supreme Court would have pleased me more if they had concerned themselves about enforcing the compulsory education provisions for Negroes in the South as is done for white children. The next ten years would be better spent in appointing truant officers and looking after conditions in the homes from which the children come. Use to the limit what we already have.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“Anything I can say about New Hampshire
Will serve almost as well about Vermont,
Excepting that they differ in their mountains.
The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight;
New Hampshire mountains curl up in a coil.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“We all ask ourselves the question why is it that some of us are killed while others remain. The only answer is our faith in the wisdom of a supreme being. If he has chosen us to live there must be a reason. I have tried to reckon out why. Perhaps he has saved us because we are needed as witnesses to remind each other, and our folks, and folks everywhere that war is too full of horrors for human beings.”
—Michael Blankfort. Lewis Milestone. Dickerman (Jack Webb)
““But such as you and I do not seem old
Like men who live by habit. Every day
I ride with falcon to the river’s edge
Or carry the ringed mail upon my back,
Or court a woman; neither enemy,
Game-bird, nor woman does the same thing twice....””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)