When our founding fathers created the American Constitution, it was very clear that they wanted the judicial system to be free from political influence. There are many opinions on how to achieve this goal: appointment by the governor, election by the voters and the merit selection. The merit select is a method of choosing judges using a nonpartisan commission of locate, investigate, evaluate and recruit applicants for the judicial system. Once the applicants have been selected the governor then makes the final decision. The selected judge serves a specific amount of time (typically one term) and then placed on a ballot, not as candidate but instead to ask voters if the judges should remain in office. Texas is currently one of seven states
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Because of this population growth the Texas Supreme Court was overloaded with cases and it was taking longer and longer for people to get a case through the court system. The Article V of the Constitution of 1876 created a separate Court of Appeals to hear the criminal cases. Unfortunately, this only made the problem worse because the new structure was very complicated. Lawyers often had a hard time determining if their case should be appealed in the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. In 1890 the populated had increased to over 2.2 million so Texas voters decided to pass a constitutional amendment to make the court system simpler and to decrease the caseload of the Supreme Court. The new system created a new level of civil appeals courts throughout the state that would hear appeals from local courts. The cases would only go to the Supreme Court if it could not be resolved in the local …show more content…
The amendment also gave this court full responsibility for all the criminal cases from the local trial courts. Texas is one of only two states that has separate high courts for civil and criminal matters. James Mann Hurt was the first presiding judge for this new court that functioned as the state’s highest criminal court and the judges served six year terms. In 1934 the Court of Criminal Appeals was granted authority to select commissioners whose decisions were considered final once approved by the regular
Because of this population growth the Texas Supreme Court was overloaded with cases and it was taking longer and longer for people to get a case through the court system. The Article V of the Constitution of 1876 created a separate Court of Appeals to hear the criminal cases. Unfortunately, this only made the problem worse because the new structure was very complicated. Lawyers often had a hard time determining if their case should be appealed in the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. In 1890 the populated had increased to over 2.2 million so Texas voters decided to pass a constitutional amendment to make the court system simpler and to decrease the caseload of the Supreme Court. The new system created a new level of civil appeals courts throughout the state that would hear appeals from local courts. The cases would only go to the Supreme Court if it could not be resolved in the local …show more content…
The amendment also gave this court full responsibility for all the criminal cases from the local trial courts. Texas is one of only two states that has separate high courts for civil and criminal matters. James Mann Hurt was the first presiding judge for this new court that functioned as the state’s highest criminal court and the judges served six year terms. In 1934 the Court of Criminal Appeals was granted authority to select commissioners whose decisions were considered final once approved by the regular