[Footnote 15: Independence of the state courts.]
[Sidenote: Constitution of the state courts.]
We have already had something to say about courts in connection with
those primitive areas for the administration of justice, the hundred
and the county. In our states there are generally four grades of
courts. There are, first, the _justices of the peace _, with
jurisdiction over "petty police offences and civil suits for trifling
sums." They also conduct preliminary hearings in cases where persons
are accused of serious crimes, and when the evidence seems to warrant
it they may commit the accused person for trial before a higher court.
The mayor's court in a city usually has jurisdiction similar to that
of justices of the peace. Secondly, there are _county_ and
_municipal courts_, which hear appeals from justices of the peace
and from mayor's courts, and have original jurisdiction over a more
important grade of civil and criminal cases. Thirdly, there are
_superior courts_, having original jurisdiction over the most
important cases and over wider of the state areas of country, so that
they do not confine their sessions to one place, but move about from
place to place, like the English _justices in eyre_.
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