Editing State supreme court (section)

==Terminology==
Because state supreme courts generally hear only appeals, some courts have names which directly indicate their function{{spaced ndash}}in the state of [[New York (state)|New York]] and in the [[Washington, D.C.|District of Columbia]], the highest court is called the "Court of Appeals".{{efn|This was also formerly the case in [[Maryland]]. Maryland's jury trial courts are called "Circuit Courts" (non-jury trials are usually conducted by the "District Courts," whose decisions may be appealed to the Circuit Courts), and its intermediate appellate court was formerly called the "[[Maryland Court of Special Appeals|Court of Special Appeals]]". In the [[2022 Maryland elections|2022 general election]] held on November 8, 2022, voters approved a constitutional amendment to change the name of the court to the "Supreme Court of Maryland", and the title of its judges to "Justice." The name of the intermediate appellate court was changed to the [[Appellate Court of Maryland]].<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Munro |first1=Dana |last2=Opilo |first2=Emily |date=November 9, 2022 |title=Maryland to require legislators to live in their districts; state will rename its high court |language=en-US |work=[[The Baltimore Sun]] |url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/elections/bs-md-pol-maryland-ballot-questions-vote-20221109-55lh7busmngc7e6waiy7jeixra-story.html |access-date=November 9, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://ublawforum.wordpress.com/2022/11/13/election-day-was-a-namechanger-voters-successfully-rename-marylands-appellate-courts/ | title=Election Day was a "Namechanger": Voters Successfully Rename Maryland's Appellate Courts | date=November 13, 2022 }}</ref> It became effective on December 14, 2022.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Lash |first1=Steve |date=November 29, 2022 |title=Maryland's appellate courts will get new names Dec. 14 |work=[[The Daily Record (Maryland)|The Daily Record]] |url=https://thedailyrecord.com/2022/11/29/marylands-appellate-courts-will-get-new-names-dec-14/ |access-date=December 14, 2022}}</ref>}} In New York, the "[[New York Supreme Court|Supreme Court]]" is the [[trial court]] of general unlimited jurisdiction and the intermediate appellate court is called the "[[New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division|Supreme Court&mdash;Appellate Division]]". 

[[West Virginia]] mixes the two; its highest court is called the "[[Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia|Supreme Court of Appeals]]". 

Other states' supreme courts have used the term "Appeals": Pennsylvania's [[Pennsylvania High Court of Errors and Appeals|court of last resort from 1780-1808]]; [[New Jersey]]'s supreme courts under the 1844 constitution; and [[Delaware]]'s supreme court were all called the "[[Court of Errors and Appeals]]". The term "Errors" refers to the now-obsolete [[writ of error]], which was used by state supreme courts to correct certain types of egregious errors committed by lower courts.

[[Massachusetts]] and [[New Hampshire]] originally named their highest courts the "Superior Court of Judicature."  Since 1780, Massachusetts has used the name "[[Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court|Supreme Judicial Court]]" (to distinguish itself from the state legislature, which is called the [[Massachusetts General Court]]); New Hampshire uses the name "[[New Hampshire Supreme Court|Supreme Court]]". Additionally the highest court in [[Maine]] is named the "[[Maine Supreme Judicial Court|Supreme Judicial Court]]".  This similar terminology is probably a holdover from the time when Maine was part of Massachusetts. In Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, the highest courts formerly used variations of the term "Court of Errors," which indicated that the court's primary purpose was to correct the errors of lower courts.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Appellate Division - Second Judicial Department |url=https://www.nycourts.gov/courts/ad2/aboutthecourt.shtml |access-date=2023-11-15 |website=www.nycourts.gov}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Orfield |first=Lester B. |date=March 1942 |title=APPELLATE PROCEDURE IN EQUITY CASES: A GUIDE FOR APPEALS AT LAW |url=https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=9243&context=penn_law_review |journal=[[University of Pennsylvania Law Review]] |pages=19}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Swindler |first=William F. |date=March 1976 |title=Seedtime of an American Judiciary: From Independence to the Constitution |url=https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2487&context=wmlr |journal=[[William & Mary Law Review]] |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=9}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2022 |title=The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania |url=https://www.pacourts.us/Storage/media/pdfs/20220509/143332-supreme300booklet_web.pdf |access-date=November 15, 2023}}</ref>