Civil laws, Criminal laws and Public laws
The Incredible Hulk of laws: public law
Here’s the way that these appeal courts connect to what I was saying before about common and statutory law.
Most common law is made by appeals courts. And because appeals courts have larger jurisdiction than trial courts, appeals decisions are much more important than trial court decisions.
So now I’m going to talk about the three types of law, and it’s going to get confusing. The two main types of law are basically the Bruce Banner of law. They’re the criminal law and civil law, but they can sometimes morph into the Incredible Hulk of laws: public law.
“Public law, smash abuse of government authority!” If you watch TV or movies, or read John Grisham novels, you’re probably familiar with criminal law. Criminal laws are almost always statutes written by legislatures, which means that there is an actual law for you to break.
In most states the criminal laws are called the penal codes.
In a criminal dispute — and it’s a dispute because the government says you broke the law and you will say you didn’t — the government is called the prosecution and the person accused of committing the crime is called the defendant.
Almost all criminal cases happen at the state level and for this reason it’s hard to know exactly what is or what not a crime in each state is. Although murder is a crime everywhere. There are also some federal crimes like tax evasion, mail fraud, and racketeering.
If you’re suing someone or being sued, you’re in the realm of civil law.
Civil cases arise from disputes between individuals, or between individuals and the government, when one party, the plaintiff, claims that the other party, the defendant, has caused an injury that can be fixed or remedied.
If the plaintiff proves his or her case the defendant must pay damages. If you lose a civil case you don’t go to prison or jail in most circumstances, but you may end up losing lots of money, and that sucks. I love money. Cases about contracts, property, and personal injuries, also called torts, are examples of civil law.
Thanks for reading. 😊
