|
Question: How is the government
like a tree?
They
both have branches! There are three branches of the federal government
and three branches of the state government. Each has an executive
branch, legislative branch, and judicial branch. The president is head
of the executive branch of the federal government and the governor is head of
the state executive branch. At the federal level, the legislative branch is
called the Congress, which includes the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The State of West Virginia legislative branch has a House of Delegates and a
Senate which, together, are called the West Virginia Legislature.
The Judicial Branch
West Virginia's judicial branch (the court system)
is made up of different kinds of courts. Question: How is the court system like
a pyramid? If the court system were shaped
like a pyramid, the Supreme Court of Appeals would be at the top. The Supreme
Court of Appeals has five judges - a chief justice and four associate justices.
Justices wear black robes like other judges, but do not conduct trials such
as those you might see on television or in movies. Instead, they hear appeals
of decisions made by lower courts and decide whether the
decision (verdict) violated any of the rights we all are guaranteed under the
state and federal Constitutions.
The justices do this by studying the transcripts (what
everybody said word-for-word during any earlier trials) and also other documents
related to the case. Sometimes the Supreme Court also listens to oral arguments by lawyers for both sides. The lawyers do not argue
like you might do with your brother or sister, but rather they take turns trying
to convince the court that their side is right and the other side is wrong.
The justices also ask the lawyers questions. There are no witnesses and there
is no jury . Instead the five members of
the Supreme Court decide which side is legally correct. When they make that
decision, the justices write an opinion
explaining why they ruled the way they did.
Next in our judicial pyramid are the trial
courts and family courts.
Our trial courts are called circuit
courts. Circuit
court judges must be lawyers, also called attorneys. That is a requirement for
most judges in West Virginia. Circuit court judges usually wear a black robe and sit
at a big bench at the front of the courtroom. Sometimes trials in these courtrooms
have juries and sometimes the judges hear all of the testimony and decide whether
someone is guilty or innocent or which side wins the case. Everyone accused
of a crime has the right to have a jury trial, but they also have a right to
let the judge decide instead. These judges preside
over criminal trials and other kinds of trials, such as lawsuits. If someone
hurts you in a car wreck, a trial court may decide how much money you should
get to pay your doctor bills and replace or fix your car. That is a civil case
(a case that does not involve a crime). Trial courts help people resolve many
different kinds of problems and disagreements.
Just like the name sounds, family
court judges hear cases about families. For example, if your mom and dad
want to get a divorce, they might have hearings before a family court judge.
Family court hearings are not open to the public and there are never juries.
Family court judges understand how hard divorce is for kids and their parents so
they do special things to help them.
Circuit judges are helped by two special
types of judges: mental hygiene commissioners and juvenile
referees.
Mental hygiene commissioners
are a special type of judge in the circuit court system. Mental health is just
as important as physical health. Sometimes people have such big mental or
emotional problems, they need to go to the hospital to get better. Mental hygiene commissioners
hold hearings to make sure people who have a mental illness or who can't make important decisions
by themselves get the help they need.
The third level of courts in West
Virginia - those at the bottom of the pyramid - are the busiest. They are the
magistrate courts. The law limits what kinds of
cases come into these courts. For example, magistrates conduct preliminary
hearings in cases involving serious crimes, known as felonies. The only
criminal trials in magistrate courts are for misdemeanors, or less serious crimes,
when the accused person has given up the right to a jury trial in circuit court.
Civil trials in magistrate courts involve amounts of $5,000 or less. In most
counties, magistrates also serve as juvenile referees.
Finally, there are
the municipal courts in which judges hear cases
involving violations of city laws, such as letting your dog run loose in a city
where that is not allowed. Municipal courts are local courts and aren't part
of the state court system. Cities pay for and manage municipal courts.
As you now know, the judicial system is very
important to all of us in many different ways. One of the most important things
it does is make sure that no one does something to us that is not allowed by
our state and federal Constitutions. Courts serve as a check on the powers of
both the legislative and executive branches. Courts do
not write laws (the legislative branch does that), but they can review
laws to decide whether they are constitutional. For example, if the Legislature
passed a law saying you have to eat nothing but spinach every day (the Legislature
would not do that, of course, even though spinach is good for you), the courts
would step in and throw it out (the law, not the spinach) because it is unconstitutional .
The court system has many other responsibilities, too.
Courts do things every day that affect you or someone you know. Has someone
you know adopted a baby, gotten a divorce, gotten a traffic ticket or been involved
in a lawsuit? Those are just a few of the things courts do. Courts also punish
criminals, sometimes by sending them to jail. But, they also find that some
people who have been accused of crimes did not break the law and are innocent.
In our country and in our state, courts help us feel
safe. The people who wrote the West Virginia Constitution wisely created a court
system that continues to be the foundation for today's judicial pyramid.
And Now,
Let's Find Out
What You've Learned
About West Virginia's Court Pyramid
How many levels does the West Virginia court pyramid
have?
Hint: It's somewhere between 2 and 4.
What is an appeal?
Hint: You ask your older brother to trade rooms with you because his bedroom
is bigger. He says “No!” so you go to your parents hoping they will
overrule your brother and reverse his decision. Your parents are like the Supreme
Court. Their decision is final.
What do most judges wear in court?
Hint: You might wear something over your pajamas that has the same name.
What are oral arguments?
Hint: If your mother says you “like to argue too much,” maybe you
should be a lawyer when you grow up.
Quiz for you
Click
on the
correct
answers!
Find two things judges do:
1.
Protect our constitutional rights
2.
Preside over trials
3.
Write laws
4.
Order people to eat spinach every day
The three branches of government are:
1.
The bank branch
2.
The executive branch
3.
The tree branch
4.
The judicial branch
5.
The legislative branch
|
