Detectives solve crimes with only one thing in mind: bringing the criminal to justice. That usually means trying, convicting, and getting the bad guy behind bars for the rest of his or her life. Even if you do not plan to have the trial as part of your mystery story, it is a good idea to have an understanding of the court system in your story's location.

For this article, I am using the California Court System as my example.

California has two types of state courts: Trial and Appellate.

Trial courts are also called Superior Courts and there is one in each county in the state. Superior Courts handle the following types of cases: Criminal (felonies, misdemeanors, and traffic), civil (probate, juvenile, family and small claims), appeals of small claims and civil cases under 5,000, and appeals of misdemeanor cases. Superior Court is where all state brought cases are tried. These are either judge or jury decided, depending on the kind of trial.

In California there are two types of Appellate Courts: Court of Appeals and the California Supreme Court.

Court of Appeals handles cases where appeals have been made. Cases heard here are not new trials, but reviews of the original Superior Court trials. If someone feels they were wrongly convicted or something improper happened during their trial, they can appeal the decision here.

The Court of Appeals will examine the court files and transcripts, along with the appeal documents. If necessary, the judge will hear presentations, arguments, or might even require questions answered of both sides of the appeal.

The judge alone makes the decision of whether to allow the decision to stand or reverse the decision, which might mean a new trial or the defendant being released.

This is the state's highest court. If a defendant feels the Court of Appeals ruled wrong, they can request the Supreme Court to review the case. This court also deals with death penalty cases and disciplinary cases involving judges and lawyers directly, without going to the lower courts first.

There are seven justices on the Supreme Court's bench. At least four must agree for a final decision to be found. These justices are appointed by the Governor and approved by the voters. Only the Federal Supreme Court can over turn a California Supreme Court ruling.

Catching the criminal is only half the battle for real-life detectives, and should be for your fictional detective as well. Using court information in your story, even if you have no plans of writing about the villain's trial, will make it seem all the more realistic to your reader.

Research is the number one tool any writer can use, but more so for the mystery writer. Writing a story with the proper facts, in the proper place, will go a long way to making your story stand out from the rest of the pack.

Dawn Arkin is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Fiction Writing. Her portfolio can be found at http://darkin.Writing.Com/ so stop by and read for a while.

Source: www.isnare.com