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United States court of appeals - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (1418 words) |
 | Although the courts of appeals are frequently referred to as “circuit courts”, they should not be confused with the historical United States circuit courts, which existed from 1789 to 1911 and were primarily trial courts. |
| Historically, certain classes of cases held a right of automatic appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States; that is, one of the parties to the case could appeal a decision of a court of appeals and the Supreme Court had to accept the case. |
| A court of appeals applies the law as it exists at the time of the appeal, otherwise it would be handing down decisions that were instantly obsolete, and this would be a waste of resources since such decisions could not be cited as precedent. |
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