Editing State court (United States) (section)

===Criminal cases===

As of 2019, about 1,255,689 people currently behind bars in the United States—or 87.7% out of a total of 1,430,805 prisoners—had been convicted in state court for violating state criminal laws, rather than in federal court for violating federal criminal laws.<ref name="Carson">{{cite book |last1=Carson |first1=E. Ann |title=Prisoners in 2019 |date=2020 |publisher=U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics |location=Washington, D.C. |page=3 |url=https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p19.pdf |access-date=21 November 2020}}</ref>

The proportion of criminal cases brought in state court rather than federal court is higher than 87.7% because misdemeanor and petty offense prosecutions are disproportionately brought in state courts and most criminal prosecutions involve misdemeanors and petty offenses.  The number of trials conducted in each system is another way to illustrate the relative size of the two criminal justice systems. In Colorado, in 2002, there were approximately 40 criminal trials in federal court, and there were 1,898 criminal trials (excluding hundreds of quasi-criminal trials in juvenile cases, municipal cases and infraction cases) in state courts, so only about 2% of criminal trials took place in federal court.  Most [[jury]] trials in the United States (roughly five out of six jury trials conducted in any U.S. Court) take place in criminal cases in state courts.

State courts do not have jurisdiction over criminal cases arising on [[Indian reservation]]s even if those reservations are located in their state. Less serious crimes on Indian reservations are prosecuted in tribal courts. A large share of [[violent crime]]s that are prosecuted in federal court arise on Indian reservations or [[federal lands|federal property]], where state courts lack jurisdiction, since tribal court jurisdiction is usually limited to less serious offenses.  Federal crimes on federal property in a state are often defined with reference to state criminal law.

Federal courts disproportionately handle [[white-collar crime]]s, immigration-related crimes and [[Drug-related crime|drug offenses]] (these crimes make up about 70% of the federal docket, but just 19% of the state court criminal docket).<ref name="state.co.us"/><ref name="uscourts.gov"/>  Federal courts have the power to bring death penalty charges under federal law, even if they arise in states where there is no death penalty under state law, but the federal government rarely utilizes this right.

Many rights of criminal defendants in state courts arise under federal law (or both state and federal law), but federal courts only examine federal violations of such rights—i.e., if the state courts applied those federal rights correctly—on a direct appeal from the conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, after state court direct appeals have been exhausted, or in a collateral attack on a conviction in a federal ''habeas corpus'' proceeding after all state court remedies (usually including a state court ''habeas corpus'' proceeding) have been exhausted.  Some rights of criminal defendants that apply in federal court do not exist in state court. For example, in many states there is no constitutional right to be indicted by a grand jury before facing a criminal prosecution for a felony or infamous misdemeanor, meaning that prosecutors in those states can proceed to trial on an [[Information (formal criminal charge)|information]] rather than an indictment. Oregon does not require unanimous juries in non-capital criminal cases.

Unlike non-criminal cases, criminal proceedings in state courts are primarily conducted orally, in person, in open court.