The Trial Court
At the trial court level, each party
attempts to prove that his or her case is "right",
or "just" before a judge or a jury. In order to do
that, each side presents evidence in the form of testimony and
documents. Our system of law is known as an adversary
system where each litigant’s attorney attempts
to win the case for his or her client and no help is given to
the opposing side. It is the job of the attorneys to protect
their client’s right to a fair trial or hearing by objecting
when the other side tries to win the case by unfair methods,
such as by introducing irrelevant or prejudicial evidence, or
evidence that is unreliable such as hearsay or coerced confessions.
It is not the judge's job to make the final decision in the
trial-- it rests with the trier(s)
of fact. It is the trial judge's obligation to make
sure that the evidence presented complies with the rules-- so
that that one side does not have an unfair advantage over the
other. The judge also rules on objections, and decides if testimony
can be allowed. The trier of fact is either
a jury, composed of 12 members in a criminal case, or 9 in a
civil case, or a judge if a jury is waived or the constitution
or state statutes do not provide for a jury. For instance, in
probate matters, and juvenile court, there is no right to a
jury trial and the judge makes all the decisions, as well as
the final verdict.
As the moderator, the judge instructs the jury on the law that
applies to the case and the task of the jury is to apply the
facts to the law to come up with a decision. In order to work
properly, each side needs a skilled advocate who makes all necessary
efforts to investigate and prepare the case for trial, to introduce
all the evidence that will support his or her case, and to keep
out objectionable evidence or argument that would prejudice
his client’s case before the trier of fact.
The trial system assumes that the judge will make all the correct
rulings to ensure that only admissible and non-prejudicial evidence
gets to the decision maker(s), and it assumes that the jurors
making the decision, will correctly apply the law to the facts.
While this is the theory behind our adversary system,
it rarely works this well in practice.
The Appellate Court
There is also a common perception that the appellate courts
act as a kind of "super jury" that will correct
misjudgments or poor decisions by the jury in the trial court.
On the contrary, the appellate court justices do not sit as
a "new" judge or jury to re-decide a verdict. It
is the function of the appellate court to review the judgment
of the trial court to ensure that the trial court proceedings
were fair and that the judgment is reliable. In other words,
the court must answer the question:
did every party in the (appealed) proceeding get a fair hearing
of their respective case?
The responsibility of the appellate court in reviewing the
sufficiency of the evidence is to simply determine if there
was any evidence in the trial record to support that judgement
or verdict. The “appellate record” is the trial
clerk’s transcript consisting of the papers filed by
the attorneys in the trial court, the minutes of each day’s
court proceedings, the exhibits and evidence introduced by
the parties, and the court reporter’s transcript which
is the written record of what was said in the courtroom by
the attorneys, judge, and witnesses.
When one party or a defendant feel
that the jury or judge did not decide the facts of the case
fairly or properly in their favor, they have the right to
appeal that decision or verdict. The job of the appellate
court is to determine if the attorneys, the judge and/or the
jury performed their duties so that the result of the trial
can be considered reliable. While a defendant or litigant
may complain that a verdict was "unjust" or "unfair",
the appellate court will not consider their opinion in its
review of a case on appeal. The court instead, relies on the
attorneys from each side to prepare a brief telling the court
what the problems were in the trial, and how those problems
may have affected the outcome.
Unlike the trial court where a single judge acts as a moderator,
at the Court of Appeal multiple justices hear the case. Progressing
along the appellate stairwell from Court of Appeal, to State
Supreme Court, to United States Supreme Court, the stakes
get larger and therefore the
number of justices that must be convinced gets correspondingly
greater:
• there are three justices at the State Court of Appeal;
• there are three justices at the Federal Court of Appeal;
• there are seven justices at the California Supreme
Court;
• there are nine justices at the U.S. Supreme Court.
It makes sense that the greater the impact an appellate court
decision has on the lives of ordinary citizens, (and the rulings
of the U.S. Supreme Court have the greatest impact) that a
correspondingly greater number of jurists should be convinced
of the merit of the decision.
The Appellate Review
How the appellate court conducts the review of the record
on appeal is known as the “standard of review.”
For instance, if the question is whether or not the trial
court properly applied the law or gave correct instructions,
the appellate court can rely upon its own interpretation of
the law and applies what is known as “de novo”
or “independent review.”
This requires a more exacting review of the record by the
appellate court because the court must be sure that its opinion
is right on the facts and the law instead of simply determining
whether the reasons given by a party in a brief are wrong
or unsupported.
If the court is determining whether the verdict of a jury
or findings of the court are supported by the evidence presented
at the trial or hearing, the court applies what is known as
“substantial evidence” review. The court
will affirm the judgment if there is credible evidence in
the record supporting it. It is up to the trier of fact, be
it judge or jury, to determine which side had the better factual
argument at trial and this cannot be litigated again in the
appellate court. You need to be aware that when a case
is reviewed, there is the presumption that the trial court's
verdict is correct-- the burden is on the appellant to
show the Court of Appeal why it needs to reverse the decision.
If the question is whether the trial court conducted the proceedings
in an appropriate manner, the court applies an “abuse
of discretion” standard which requires only
some rational reason for the court’s action. For example,
the trial court exercises its discretion in pretrial matters,
such as the scope of discovery allowed to each side, and trial
matters such as the length of time and scope of examination
of witnesses.
If after applying the appropriate standard of review the appellate
court determines that an error was made, the court must then
determine whether that error affected the final result. This
also requires application of various standards of review depending
upon the type of error involved. Depending upon which “standard
of reversible error” the Court of Appeal chooses,
the party seeking to have the judgment reversed may have the
burden of proving prejudice or the party seeking to have the
judgment affirmed may have to prove the error was harmless.
For instance, errors that violate the constitutional rights
of an individual guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are reviewed
under a “harmless error” in which the party seeking
to have the judgment affirmed must show that the error was
harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. On the other hand, most
errors involving the admission or exclusion of evidence are
viewed under the “prejudicial error” standard
which requires the appellant to show some concrete way in
which the error actually affected the result
For more information regarding the appellate process, please
refer to the Appellate FAQs.
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