When a municipality or county is first incorporated, everything is likely to be under one roof. As the city or county grows, they will build new offices as needs demand, and finances permit.
In my town, they often buy and remodel buildings that other government entities have abandoned. Our municipal courthouse was once the post office. The magistrate courthouse was once a high school.
What is a magistrate courthouse? Is that like civil court or traffic court?
This varies by state, but typically traffic offenses, minor criminal offenses (theft of low amounts, disorderly conduct…), civil cases involving smaller amounts of money.
Thanks for the information. We do have a separate traffic court here (in the larger counties), but I think all the criminal stuff is handled in the same court, be it petty theft or murder 1.
Yes. In our County ‘Court House’ we have
That’s the main stuff. A hundred years ago it also had the sheriff, the jail and court room.
While my bulleted list still holds true, we now have a lot more departments. Those above must remain in the county seat (a town) the rest of us are in a different town a few miles away. That includes
County Heath/Community Care is located in the hospital, and so is HR.
Communications (911) has their own secure facilities. They handle all 911 calls for the county and towns.
Sheriffs office courts and jail is also in a different building.
So we are spread around a little bit. I’m sure I’m missing a few departments. It’s a small county we have about 500 employees. Sounds like a lot, but it adds up quickly.
In my state there are four levels of court.
Municipal court handles all traffic offenses and offenses that would be called misdemeanors in other states. No jury trials.
Superior Court is at the county level and hears all civil and felony cases. Family Court is also at this level.
Appellate Division of the Superior Court is the intermediate appeals court that hears appeals from municipal and superior courts.
Lastly there is the State Supreme Court.
I left out Tax Court which isn’t what we are talking about here.
Indeed – the “county courthouse” is commonly not exclusively a courts building but also a general county government center.
This is also matched one tier up in the case of some states like for example Kentucky where the State House or Capitol is (or was) the seat (either operational or ceremonial) of not only the chambers of the state legislature but also those of the highest state court and the governor’s office.
This has been quite an interesting thread. My experience in Canada is that courthouses have courts, and offices relating to courts (prosecutions, legal aid, judges’ offices, law libraries) and nothing more.
It greatly depends on the size of the community and how the community grew. Most full time courts are at the county level. I’ve seen all county offices crammed into one building. I’ve county complexes where all the county functions are in multiple buildings clustered together with different functions. I’ve also seen it spread out over multiple locations due to finding available land to support a growing community.
All this discussion is about local state courts. Federal Courts are more centrally located and generally only contain offices dealing with the law.
Florida Keys, that seems in keeping. Margaritaville, etc.
You have some wonderful answers here. I will add that I live in St Louis, and there is a St Louis County, and its’ courthouse takes up several city blocks. Long ago, St Louis County was quite rural, and they kept their old fashioned brick structure that once sat on the square, but now that is surrounded by ugly modern buildings bc for all intents and purposes, St Louis County is very urban. I think they house their County Police Dept there now. St Louis County and the City of St Louis are two separated entities, though they do connect. The history of why that occurred is the stuff of debate around here.
On the other side, I own property in Potosi, MO, Washington County, and it has the usual brick building, and across the street is the jail, police etc. Very small town, but it is the County Seat. People can find records of their real estate and get married there, as well as other legal matters. I have had to visit that building a few times to handle various issues related to the land I own.
In England (and other Commonwealth countries), a magistrates’ court is a court of first instance where minor offences are tried summarily (i.e., without a jury). The judges (called magistrates, or, more formally, justices of the peace) are volunteers appointed from the community and serve on a part-time basis for a number of years. They’re not legally qualified but are supported by a legally qualified court clerk who advises them. Curiously, all defendants, even in case of severe offences that are tried elsewhere before a jury, have their first court appearance before a magistrates’ court, which can, for instance, decide on bail. I could imagine some states in the US having something similar.
The United States Supreme Court shared a building with the House and Senate until the 1930s.
There are two county jurisdictions I have been familiar with since the 60s and 70s. In the 60s and 70s, everything in these two counties was in the downtown courthouse in the county seat - courtrooms, the circuit judges chambers, the circuit clerk’s office, the county clerk’s office, the county judges office (not really a judge, he or she is the chief executive officer of the county and the county court is a legislative body in Arkansas), the prosecuting attorney’s office, the county attorney’s office, the tax assessor’s office, the tax collector’s office, the sheriff’s office (sometimes the tax collector and sheriff are the same person), the jail, and probably a bunch of other stuff too. Because the county courthouses are located on the courthouse squares in downtown, there wasn’t much room for expansion. In 2024 most of these things are now scattered all over town, some nowhere near the courthouse.
In Lee County, FL, the historic courthouse (Circa 1915) is now really just the County Commissioners’ offices, the Commission chambers (the former courtroom), various rooms repurposed into meeting rooms and offices, like a small office for our congress man, should he ever visit. There is a 60’s-era administration building attached to the courthouse for the land records office, county admin proper, the county attorneys office, etc… There’s a pretty new giant office building across the street that houses the Justice Center. That’s where court functions are held. And it was built as an addition to the existing prison in our downtown. Yeah, there’s a long-term prison taking up a whole city block in our downtown. The weird part is you don’t really realize it’s there until it’s pointed out. So our official “Courthouse” stopped being such a thing back in the 60’s.
Historically, the magistrates’ courts in many English towns were housed in the town hall and some still are. This was especially convenient, as the JPs in towns tended to be appointed from the ranks of the councillors and some towns had their own commissions of the peace.
When I was preparing for my solicitor’s exam, I once spent an afternoon attending hearings from the public gallery at a magistrates’ court in central London. It was housed in a quintessentially 1970s-style building that was as depressing from the inside as well as outside.
I find that to mostly be the case in the U.S. There are some exceptions with historical buildings but most are what you would imagine when thinking of an architectural style called Government.
Or Brutalist.