Editing State supreme court (section)

===Jurisdiction and appellate procedure===
As the highest court in the state, a state supreme court has [[appellate jurisdiction]] over all matters of state law. Many states have two or more levels of courts below the state supreme court; for example, in Pennsylvania, a case might first be heard in one of the [[Pennsylvania courts of common pleas]], be appealed to the [[Superior Court of Pennsylvania]], and then finally be appealed to the [[Supreme Court of Pennsylvania]]. In other states, including Delaware, the state supreme court is the only appellate court in the state and thus has direct appellate jurisdiction over all lower courts.

Like the U.S. Supreme Court, most state supreme courts have implemented "discretionary review." Under such a system, [[intermediate appellate court]]s are entrusted with deciding the vast majority of appeals. Intermediate appellate courts generally focus on the mundane task of what appellate specialists call "error correction,"<ref name="McKenna_Page_7">{{cite book |last1=McKenna |first1=Judith A. |title=Structural and Other Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals |date=December 1994 |publisher=Federal Judicial Center |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=9780788115752 |page=7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GHM2S4IORKUC&pg=PA7 |access-date=11 December 2021}}</ref> which means their primary task is to decide whether the record reflects that the trial court correctly applied existing law. In a few states without intermediate appellate courts, the state supreme court may operate under "mandatory review", in which it ''must'' hear all appeals from the trial courts.<ref name="Manweller_Page53">{{cite book |last1=Manweller |first1=Mathew |editor1-last=Hogan |editor1-first=Sean O. |title=The Judicial Branch of State Government: People, Process, and Politics |date=2006 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara |isbn=9781851097517 |pages=37–96 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ong5k8n97P4C&pg=PA53 |access-date=5 October 2020 |chapter=Chapter 2, The Roles, Functions, and Powers of State Courts}}</ref>  This was the case, for example, in Nevada prior to 2014.<ref>Valerie Miller, "Judges renew their call for appeals court," ''Las Vegas Business Press'' 19, no. 3 (January 21, 2002): 1.</ref> For certain categories of cases, many state supreme courts that otherwise have discretionary review operate under mandatory review, usually with regard to cases involving the interpretation of the state constitution or [[capital punishment]].<ref name="Manweller_Page53" />

One of the informal traditions of the American legal system is that all litigants are entitled to at least one appeal after a final judgment on the merits.<ref name="Oakley_Page_28">{{cite book |last1=Oakley |first1=John B. |last2=Amar |first2=Vikram D. |author2-link=Vikram Amar |title=American Civil Procedure: A Guide to Civil Adjudication in US Courts |date=2009 |publisher=Kluwer Law International |location=Alphen aan den Rijn |isbn=9789041128720 |page=28 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ga8WMXi4i4QC&pg=PA28}}</ref> However, appeal is merely a ''privilege'' provided by statute, court rules, or custom;<ref name="Oakley_Page_28" /> the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that there is no federal constitutional ''right'' to an appeal.<ref>''Smith v. Robbins'', 528 U.S. 259, 270 n.5 (2000) ("[t]he Constitution does not . . . require states to create appellate review in the first place"); ''M.L.B. v. S.L.J.'', 519 U.S. 102, 110 (1996) ("the Federal Constitution guarantees no right to appellate review").</ref>