Saturday, October 01, 2005

50 Court Systems--One Place to Start

With class assignments and papers well underway, so is the need to get better control of all those sources. Does your research ever involve topics such as jury selection, family or criminal courts, court technology, or death penalty cases in the justice system? Do you sometimes wish you had a basic understanding of how an unfamiliar state court system is organized? Fortunately, there’s the National Center for State Courts, an independent, nonprofit organization serving and enhancing the operation of state courts (and other courts) by providing information, original research, and statistical surveys.

Even from a cat’s eye view, one of the best things about the NCSC web site is its state court structure charts. Just click on any state to view a chart of the state's court system. Blue-highlighted boxes in the chart link to the web site for the specific trial or appellate court described, with further links to related sites. In addition, the Center for Jury Studies and other NCSC projects publish a wide variety of court and society-related papers and reports.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

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