Few appealed cases succeed past the first-level appellate courts

Evidence

In the United States, after trial courts render their decisions, dissatisfied litigants are entitled to one appeal. Fewer than 10 percent of state trial court decisions, and roughly 13 percent of federal district court rulings, are appealed. The appellate court’s main job is error correction; that is, ensuring that the law was correctly interpreted and applied at trial. After a first-level appellate court—such as a federal court of appeals or a state intermediate court of appeals—rules on their cases, litigants may appeal those decisions as well. However, the secondlevel appellate court typically has some discretion over whether it will hear the case. For cases that fall within the jurisdiction of the federal courts, the final resort for litigants is the U.S. Supreme Court. For cases that do not, the final appeal is to the state’s supreme court. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 893

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines error correction as the appellate court’s core function and lays out the multi-level appeal structure with discretion entering at higher levels.
• XREF: connects to: Intermediate state appellate courts render final decisions in most appealed cases — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 314; Trials and appeals are rare exceptions to routine case disposition in U.S. courts — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1601; A rejected jury instruction can become the basis for an appeal. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1403

Broader Connections

• Intermediate state appellate courts render final decisions in most appealed cases #corroborates (0.90) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 314
• Trials and appeals are rare exceptions to routine case disposition in U.S. courts #qualifies (0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1601