Stanley Mosk Courthouse, Grand Ave entrance | |
Superior Court overview | |
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Jurisdiction | Government of California Los Angeles County |
Superior Court executives |
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Website | lacourt.org |
The Superior Court of Los Angeles County is the California Superior Court located in Los Angeles County. It is the largest single unified trial court in the United States.
The Superior Court operates 36 courthouses throughout the county. Currently, the Presiding Judge is Samantha P. Jessner and David W. Slayton is the Executive Officer/Clerk of Court. They, together with 583 judicial officers and 4,800 employees, operate the nearly 600 courtrooms throughout the county, with an annual budget of over $1 billion. [1]
When California declared its statehood in 1849 and became a part of the United States, the first California Constitution authorized the legislature to establish municipal and such other courts as it deemed necessary. The 1851 California Judiciary Act divided the state into districts, placing Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties into one district. Each district had its own court, below which were County and then Justice of the Peace Courts. Judge Agustín Olvera of the County Court and Judge Jonathan R. Scott of the Justice of the Peace Court were the first judges of these lower courts. Almost immediately the District Court system was burdened by the vast expanse of the district. District Judges were required to hold court proceedings where the cases were filed. Because of the distance District Court Judges had to travel to conduct trials and the sudden growth in population due to the California Gold Rush, the District Court system became ineffective and non-responsive to the needs of its constituency.
In 1879 California adopted a new constitution and with it a revised court system. The District Courts became appeals courts below the State Supreme Court. To take over the District Courts original function, the county Superior Courts were created. The new Superior Court of Los Angeles County began with two judges: Ygnacio Sepulveda and Volney E. Howard. In 1905, juvenile delinquency and dependency hearings were put under the Superior Court's jurisdiction, as were mental health hearings in 1914. Eventually the Superior Court's jurisdiction came to include all civil, felony criminal, family law, juvenile delinquency and dependency, and probate cases in the county.
Throughout its history the Superior Court had had a close relation with the county's many Municipal Courts. By 1971 the Superior Court assumed responsibility for coordinating, providing and scheduling court interpreters for all courts in the County and by 1973 the Court had implemented a county wide system to process the payment of court appointed attorneys. The following year, 1974, all jury services in the county had been consolidated. In 1986 county-wide uniform criminal Local Court rules and uniform exhibit processing procedures were adopted to ensure consistency in how criminal cases were handled through the court system. By 1988 the Municipal and Superior Courts began to cross-assign cases to ease the county's judicial backlog. In 1993 the Superior Court adopted the Municipal Courts' automated criminal case processing system; known as the Municipal Court Information it was rebranded the Trial Court Information System. Also in 1993 the Superior Court was administratively unified with several of the Municipal Courts. And by 1999 17 more Municipal Courts had joined. Finally on January 22, 2000, in accordance with Proposition 220 passed in 1998, the Judges of the Municipal and Superior Courts voted to merge into the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles. [2]
In 2000, a pilot Complex Civil Litigation Program was established in the Los Angeles Superior Court, [3] which has since been made permanent. [4]
The Court uses the California Court Case Management System (CCMS) v3, [6] and exposes services to the public such as the Criminal Defendant Index, Civil Party Name Search, Civil Case Document Images, Traffic Ticket Online Services, e-File Small Claims, and Divorce Judgment Documents. The difference between CCMS and these other services is similar to the difference between the federal CM/ECF and PACER systems.
The Court has nearly 4,800 employees, operates nearly 600 courtrooms throughout the county, and has an annual budget of $1 billion. The Court has 2.7 million new cases each year:
Pursuant to California Government Code and the California Rules of Court, the Los Angeles County Superior Court has adopted Local Rules for its government and the government of its officers. [7] [8] The Presiding Judge assigns cases to departments and judges to departments. [9] [10] Nominations and election of the Presiding and Assistant Presiding Judge are made by all judges and take place between September and October of each year. [11] [12] All departments are divided into several principal divisions under the policy and procedures established by its supervising judge, subject to the approval of the Executive Committee and the Presiding Judge. [9]
There are several officers of the court, including judges, jurors, commissioners, prosecutors, defense attorneys, clerks, bailiffs, and court reporters.
The state Administrative Office of the Courts maintains an official roster of all superior court judges, including the 431 judges of the L.A. Superior Court. Median spending for a judicial office election for the Los Angeles County Superior Court has risen from $3,177 in 1970 to $70,000 in 1994. [13] Notable judges:
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A commissioner is a subordinate judicial officer elected by the judges of the Court and given the power to hear and make decisions in certain kinds of legal matters, similar to the United States magistrate judge. Their jurisdiction includes, but is not limited to, traffic matters, family law and juvenile cases, criminal misdemeanors, and criminal felony cases through the preliminary hearing stage. There are 140 commissioners.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney, currently George Gascón, prosecutes crimes before the court on behalf of California, Los Angeles County, and all cities and special districts within Los Angeles County.
The Los Angeles County Public Defender, currently Ricardo Garcia, is the public defender. https://pubdef.lacounty.gov/
The court clerks, or Judicial Assistants, are responsible for managing the courtrooms and other clerical courtroom activities, interacting with the attorneys and the public, administering oaths, assisting with the impaneling juries, and are responsible for the inventory and safe-keeping of the exhibits. The current Clerk is David W. Slayton.
The functions of the bailiff are carried out by Los Angeles County Sheriff, currently Robert Luna, under contract.
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility and arguments of the parties, and then issues a ruling in the case based on their interpretation of the law and their own personal judgment. A judge is expected to conduct the trial impartially and, typically, in an open court.
A courthouse or court house is a structure which houses judicial functions for a governmental entity such as a state, region, province, county, prefecture, regency, or similar governmental unit. A courthouse is home to one or more courtrooms, the enclosed space in which a judge presides over a court, and one or more chambers, the private offices of judges. Larger courthouses often also have space for offices of judicial support staff such as court clerks and deputy clerks.
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law. The practical authority given to the court is known as its jurisdiction, the court's power to decide certain kinds of questions or petitions put to it. There are various kinds of courts, including trial courts that hold trials and appellate courts that hear appeals. Two major legal traditions of the western world are the civil law courts and the common law courts.
A courtroom is the enclosed space in which courts of law are held in front of a judge. A number of courtrooms, which may also be known as "courts", may be housed in a courthouse. In recent years, courtrooms have been equipped with audiovisual technology to permit everyone present to clearly hear testimony and see exhibits.
The structure of the judiciary of Texas is laid out in Article 5 of the Constitution of Texas and is further defined by statute, in particular the Texas Government Code and Texas Probate Code. The structure is complex, featuring many layers of courts, numerous instances of overlapping jurisdiction, several differences between counties, as well as an unusual bifurcated appellate system at the top level found in only one other state: Oklahoma. Municipal Courts are the most active courts, with County Courts and District Courts handling most other cases and often sharing the same courthouse.
The California Courts of Appeal are the state intermediate appellate courts in the U.S. state of California. The state is geographically divided along county lines into six appellate districts. The Courts of Appeal form the largest state-level intermediate appellate court system in the United States, with 106 justices.
The Superior Court is the state court in the U.S. state of New Jersey, with statewide trial and appellate jurisdiction. The New Jersey Constitution of 1947 establishes the power of the New Jersey courts: under Article Six of the State Constitution, "judicial power shall be vested in a Supreme Court, a Superior Court, and other courts of limited jurisdiction." The Superior Court has three divisions: the Law Division which is the main trial court for cases of civil or criminal law, the Chancery Division, which tries equity law cases, and the Appellate Division, which is the intermediate appellate court in New Jersey. "Appeals may be taken to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court from the law and chancery divisions of the Superior Court and in such other causes as may be provided by law." Each division of the Superior Court is divided into various Parts."
Superior courts in California are the state trial courts with general jurisdiction to hear and decide any civil or criminal action which is not specially designated to be heard in some other court or before a governmental agency. As mandated by the California Constitution, there is a superior court in each of the 58 counties in California. The superior courts also have appellate divisions which hear appeals from decisions in cases previously heard by inferior courts.
The Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento, alternatively called the Sacramento County Superior Court, is the California Superior Court located in Sacramento with jurisdiction over Sacramento County.
Delbert Gee is a retired Alameda County Superior Court Judge who served for 20 years until 2022, presiding over both civil and criminal cases.
The Judiciary of Vermont is the state court system of Vermont, charged with Vermont law.
The Judiciary of New York is the judicial branch of the Government of New York, comprising all the courts of the State of New York.
The Circuit Court of Cook County is the largest of the 25 circuit courts in the judiciary of Illinois as well as one of the largest unified court systems in the United States – second only in size to the Superior Court of Los Angeles County since that court merged with other courts in 1998.
Robert Gary Klausner is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
The Alameda County Superior Court, officially the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, is the California superior court with jurisdiction over Alameda County as established by Article VI of the Constitution of California. It functions as the trial court for both criminal and civil cases filed in Alameda County.
A court show is a broadcast programming genre comprising legal dramas and reality legal programming. Court shows present content mainly in the form of legal hearings between plaintiffs and defendants, presided over in one of two formats: scripted/improvised with an actor portraying a judge; or, an arbitration-based reality format with the case handled by an adjudicator who was formerly a judge or attorney.
The Judiciary of California or the Judicial Branch of California is defined under the California Constitution as holding the judicial power of the state of California which is vested in the Supreme Court, the Courts of Appeal and the Superior Courts. The judiciary has a hierarchical structure with the California Supreme Court at the top, California Courts of Appeal as the primary appellate courts, and the California Superior Courts as the primary trial courts.
The Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo is the California superior court with jurisdiction over San Mateo County.
Stanley Martin Weisberg is a former prosecutor and Los Angeles County Superior Court judge known for presiding over trials of the police officers charged with the beating of Rodney King and of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez in the trial for the murder of their parents. In several cases, he made controversial rulings that were subject to criticism.
The Solano County Superior Court is the California superior court with jurisdiction over Solano County.