Chapter 4

• Jurisdiction: United States

Chapter 4 Appellate Courts

Appellate courts are very different from trial courts. Their purpose is to allow a party that has been through a trial and lost to argue that it lost because the trial court committed an error.

There are many differences between trial courts and appellate courts:

• Appellate courts usually sit in panels of three judges, chosen from a group of judges who only hear appeals.
• Appellate courts do not use juries. They accept the facts as found by the jury in the trial court and generally focus on errors of law the trial judge may have committed.
• For the same reason, appellate courts do not take testimony from witnesses.
• Their courtroom proceedings are usually short. A case may be heard in as little as an hour.
• Their decisions are always issued as written "opinions," essays that explain the law as it applies to that case.

It is always true in America that the losing party has a right to appeal from a ruling of a trial court. That appeal may have some restrictions as to what arguments can be raised and when they can be raised, but the losing party always has a second chance.

In our discussion of appellate courts, we will be focused on federal appellate courts, not state appellate courts. The differences between the two systems are not huge, but the federal system is the same throughout the country while the state systems vary quite a...