A couple of legal questions.

Factual Questions
1

I was watching Law and Order on A & E last night and came away with a couple of questions that are bugging me.

  1. Whenever they read someone their Miranda rights on one of these shows they also ask “Do you understand?” What happens if you said “No”. It may sound like a smart-ass answer but presumably they ask for a reason. What if you really don’t understand.

  2. I often see or hear references to Supreme Court Trial Part {whatever}. What are the various parts. Or would I need a law degree to understand?

Thanks in advance for any help.

2

  1. If your answer is “No,” that means you can’t waive the right to not incriminate yourself, which requires an intelligent waiver. Which should mean the police won’t ask you any questions, as your answers would not be admissible evidence under Miranda. This answer, however, is subject to change, as last time I heard there was a case before the US Supreme Court reviewing the Miranda decision.

  2. In New York State, where Law and Order is supposed to be based, the trial level court is referred to as “the Supreme Court” for reasons I’ve never really understood. The highest court in New York State is called the “Court of Appeals.” As for the “parts,” I’m not sure if that refers to civil court vs. criminal court, or trial court vs. arraignment court, or even felony court vs. misdemeanor court. Most states differentiate between these, but being an Illinois attorney I have no idea how they do this in New York.

3

Thanks Dave. I’ve been wondering about that first question for a while. :slight_smile:

The other one only recently started bugging me. Hopefully there’s a New York lawyer out there who can help me out.

I don’t know if this will help any, but if I’m remembering last night’s episode correctly they mentioned “Part 25” on the screen as a lead in to a trial scene. Later the judge (in chambers) makes reference to getting back to “part 27” of the trial. At some point between these scenes the prosecution rested (don’t know if this is relevant).

4

The New York Supreme Court was actually supreme when it was established in 1691. The New York State Court of Appeals wasn’t established until 1777.

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As best as I understand it , in Supreme Court , a part refers to a particular judge.For example, if part 25 is in room 311, and for some reason ( say, repairs) that judge is moved to room 205,it would still be part 25.

6

Doreen is almost correct. A “part” is, for all practical purposes, a courtroom number. “Part 27” is the functional equivalent of saying “courtroom 27.”

I believe that the terminology is left over from the manner in which cases used to be assigned in New York until a court reform (ha!) plan was passed in the 1980’s. Prior to that, you had no particular judge assigned to any particular case. When you needed to make a motion, you filed your papers and it was assigned to a judge who was in the “motion part” of the court; when your case was ready for trial, it was assigned to a judge sitting in the “trial part”. Courtrooms were denoted as “motion part 4” or “trial part 16”.

This system was awkward, because different judges were ruling on the same case throughout its lifetime, creating unpredictibility, wasted time, and sometimes incongruous results. The courts switched to an “individual assignment system” in the early 80’s, where “trial parts” and “motion parts” were effectively abolished. Instead, each case was assigned to one judge for all purposes. However, the reference to courtrooms as “parts” still persisted, and they were just renumbered sequentially.

Having said that, I can’t explain the dialouge snippet you quoted from the show. It would not be unusual for a judge in “part 25” to talk about the goings on in “part 27.” It would be like Judge Jones talking about what is going on in “Judge Smith’s courtroom.” Presumably, the judge in part 27 either had a related case going on there (a parallel civil action? An accomplice’s trial?) or else they were talking about one of the lawyers needing to go down to part 27 to appear in an unrelated case-- “I can’t do the hearing this afternoon because I’m in part 27 for an arraignment at 2:00.”

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Thank you Nurlman. As far as the dialogue from the show goes, I was working from memory and it’s possible I got it wrong. I tried watching the show last night, but that shed no light on the situation.

Thanks again.

8

With respect to the term “Supreme Court” as the name of the trial court, it dates back to reforms to the English model of courts, inherited by the colonies.

In England, there were three royal courts of common law, termed the superior courts: King’s Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer. In theory, King’s Bench was public law and criminal cases; Common Pleas was private law suits, between subjects, and Exchequer was the royal revenue court.

There was a fourth superior court, the Court of Chancery, which adminstered equity, not the common law.

The usual pattern in English colonies was to copy the mother country’s court system, so most colonies had a King’s Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer, and Chancery court. New York followed this pattern, as the link that Bibliophage provided shows. However, in a small colony, with a limited number of qualified lawyers, having so many courts served little purpose. Eventually, the colonies tended to unify at least the three common law courts into one court, and sooner or later added in the Court of Chancery.

The unfied superior court was commonly called the Supreme Court, not because of its position in the court hierarchy, but because it had general original jurisdiction - any claim or prosecution could be brought in the Supreme Court, unless the matter was assigned to some other court by statute. So, it was supreme in that sense.

The unified superior court was supreme in another sense. At common law, appeals are entirely creatures of statute. Unless a statute provides for a right of appellate review, the decision of the unified Supreme Court, as a superior court, is final. (At common law, decisions of inferior courts could always be reviewed in the superior courts, so those courts weren’t “supreme” in this sense.)

The development of the New York Supreme Court in the link is paralleled in other former British colonies, and in England itself. England unified the superior courts in the 1870’s, and called the unified court “The Supreme Court of Judicature.” It is not the final appellate court for England - the House of Lords, sitting in its judicial capacity, is the ultimate court of appeal for England.

In Australia, the superior court of original jurisdiciton in most of the states is called the Supreme Court. The ultimate appellate court is the High Court.

In Canada, the nomenclature is a bit mixed. In Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, the superior court of original jurisdiction is called the Supreme Court.

In Ontario and Quebec, it’s called the Superior Court.

In Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick, it’s called the Queen’s Bench.

The ultimate appellate court is the Supreme Court of Canada.

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freeadvice.com for those pesky law questions :slight_smile:

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now if I can only develop a web presence, and make some money off it somehow…

11

Massachusetts names the courts so simply:

run-of-the-mill court: Trial Court
lower appelate court: Appeals Court
court of last resort: Supreme Judicial Court

Things are sooo much easier this way…

Of course, when we’re talking about the General Court of Massachusetts, its the legislature, not the judiciary. We has to toss something complicated in there somehow.