In the United States, the state supreme court (also known by other names in various states) is the highest state court in the state court system (i.e., that state's court of last resort).
Generally, the state supreme court, like most appellate tribunals, is exclusively for hearing appeals of legal issues. It does not make any finding of facts, and thus holds no trials. In the rare case where the trial court made an egregious error in its finding of facts, the state supreme court will remand to the trial court for a new trial. This responsibility of correcting the errors of inferior courts is the origin of a number of the different names for supreme courts in various states' court systems.
The court consists of a panel of judges selected by methods outlined in the state constitution. State supreme courts are completely distinct from any United States federal courts located within the geographical boundaries of a state's territory, or the federal United States Supreme Court (although appeals, on some issues, from judgments of a state's highest court can be sought in the U.S. Supreme Court).
Read more about State Supreme Court: Appellate Jurisdiction, Location, Statistics, State By State, Supreme Courts of Sovereign Nations
Famous quotes containing the words state, supreme and/or court:
“Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“We must know, if only in order to learn not to know. The supreme lesson of human consciousness is to learn how not to know. That is, how not to interfere.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Rome, like Washington, is small enough, quiet enough, for strong personal intimacies; Rome, like Washington, has its democratic court and its entourage of diplomatic circle; Rome, like Washington, gives you plenty of time and plenty of sunlight. In New York we have annihilated both.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)