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Court of Appeals or (outside the U.S. and in some American states ) Court of Appeal is the title of a court which has the power to consider or hear an appeal. A court of appeal is also a superior court.
The United States
The thirteen United States Courts of Appeals stand between the United States District Courts (or other comparable federal courts, such as the Court of International Trade) and the United States Supreme Court.
Each state has decided upon its own particular appellate structure.
In the state of New York, for example, the Court of Appeals is the highest court in the state and the court of last resort within the State. Only cases raising questions of federal law can be appealed from there to the United States Supreme Court. Similarly, in the District of Columbia, the Court of Appeals is equivalent to a state supreme court.
In California, the intermediate appellate courts are known as the Courts of Appeal (note the lack of an "s").
In New Mexico, the Court of Appeals is the intermediate appellate court between county jurisdictions and the state's Supreme Court. Most states that have a Court of Appeals (or multiple Courts) give them a similar intermediate role.
In Nevada (and a few other states), there is no Court of Appeals. Cases are appealed directly from District (county) Courts to the state's Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court in that case must hear all appeals.
The general rule in the American justice system is that the loser deserves one appeal. Therefore, such intermediate courts usually have mandatory jurisdiction and must hear an appeal, while the state supreme court (or the U.S. Supreme Court in the federal system) has discretionary jurisdiction and hears an appeal only if it wants to. There exist some special exceptions to this rule. In some state courts, the state's supreme court is required by law to hear all appeals of a certain nature. These cases usually involve the death penalty or cases involving high-ranking government officials.
Commonwealth
Some jurisdictions within the Commonwealth of Nations have courts by the name of the Court of Appeal above the High Court, Supreme Court or Court of Queens Bench and below the court of last resort (which may be a federal Supreme Court (as in Canada), the High Court (as in Australia), House of Lords, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council). For a fuller treatment, see Courts of England and Wales or Court of Appeal of England and Wales.
In Canada the Court of Appeal is the highest court in most of the country's provincial jurisdictions. The Supreme Court of Canada, the country's court of last resort, is the only court higher than any of the provincial or territorial courts of appeal. The chief justice of the appellate court is styled Chief Justice of Name of the Province. In Australia State Courts of Appeal, where they exist, are appellate divisions of the State Supreme Courts rather than being separately constituted; appeals formerly lay either by leave or as of right depending on the nature of the case either to the High Court of Australia and then to the Judicial Committee of the Imperial Privy Council or directly to the Privy Council. The Privy Council appeal was abolished in 1987 and the High Court is now the court of last resort. In New Zealand the Court of Appeal is an intermediate appellate court below the Supreme Court of New Zealand. Formerly, prior to the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council, the Court of Appeal was considered by some commentators to have been a de-facto court of last resport given that less than a dozen appeals per year were heard by the Privy Council. Since the abolition of the Privy Council appeal in these jurisdictions and with the increasing rationalisation of English law to that of continental Europe, Commonwealth jurisdictions have paid greater head to the jurisprudence of their fellow Commonwealth countries than formerly, that of the High Court of Australia and the New Zealand Court of Appeal being held in special regard.
Elsewhere
In France the Courts of Appeals are one level under the Cour de cassation, which is the court of last resort. There exist administrative Courts of Appeal, under the Conseil d'État, for cases belonging to the administrative order.
In Germany, with civil and criminal cases, the highest court in a hierarchy of appellate courts is the Bundesgerichtshof. The other branches of the German judicial branch for social, labor, and administrative cases each have their own appellate systems. The Bundesgerichtshof is distinct from the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, which only performs judicial review, although both courts are located in Karlsruhe.
See also
"Court of Appeals"