INF 382M
Government Information
Fall 2004
Doty
TEXAS JUDICIAL INFORMATION
As with the other two branches of Texas government, a good place to start to learn about the judicial branch is in the Texas Constitution. Article 5, the Judicial Department, has the usual combination of definitions, descriptions of duties and rights of judicial actors, jurisdictional guidance, and outlining of the offices and other topics related to various judicial office holders, e.g., county clerks, district attorneys, and county judges. Review of these constitutional elements, in conjunction with the Texas Judiciary Online site discussed immediately below, is an excellent way to begin to become familiar with the administration of justice in Texas and with the sources of information about it.
· Texas Judiciary Online http://www.courts.state.tx.us/
As it says in the site description:
Texas Judiciary Online is a state judicial system web page. It is a project of the Judicial Committee on Information Technology ("JCIT") and the Office of Court Administration ("OCA"). It serves as a home page for Texas courts, agencies, and committees, and as a link to related state government and federal court sites.
You might want to begin by looking at the Overview of Texas Courts link around the middle of the page (http://www.courts.state.tx.us/txcrtoverview.asp). Not only is the brief description an excellent summary of the fundamentals of the justice system in Texas, but the links in that description and elsewhere on the page go to many of the most valuable judicial sites, including those to various courts, judicial committees and offices, libraries, forms, procedures, directories, and other sources. These other sources include federal sites, general legal sites, and so on. Exploration and initiative are your friends here <grin>.
Among the most valuable links at Texas Judiciary Online are those along the left side of the page, e.g., Texas Appellate Courts, Texas Trial Courts, Court Rules, Access to Court Records (not subject to public information, i.e., open records requests), many valuable links, and online search tools. You may want especially to look at:
· The Supreme Court of Texas http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/
· Its opinions and orders http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/historical/recent.asp
What are retrospective/historical tools for case law in Texas, especially for the Supreme Court? We suffer from an embarrassment of riches here in Austin with the Texas State Law Library, the UT Law Library, the Texas State Library & Archives Commission, and other places to find such tools. Look at them.
Also take a look at
· The Virtual Courts http://www.courts.state.tx.us/publicinfo/vcourts.asp
Spend some time at “Links” in the left-hand menu banner at this Virtual Court page (which appears in all main Texas Judiciary Online pages), and review “Legal Sites.”
· Legal Sites http://www.courts.state.tx.us/links/legal.asp
You may find this link interesting for Attorney General Opinions, the Texas Register, the Texas Administrative Code, and the Law & Politics Internet Guide (http://www.lpig.org/), especially its link to Legal Web Sites – a fun site, indeed!
As always, the Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell University is worth a careful look, especially for its links to state law sources, also available by topic. For state access, go to “Listing by Jurisdiction” at the general state site, then proceed from there. Texas is in about the middle of the right-hand column:
· State-specific site at LII at Cornell http://www.law.cornell.edu/states/index.html
The last two sites I want to mention deserve very close review, from a number of different perspectives. Rely on your own curiosity, interests, and growing expertise ;~) to guide you:
· Texas State Law Library http://www.sll.state.tx.us/
This site has a very rich collection of sources and services of interest to researchers, citizens, and information intermediaries, and these sources go well beyond Texas-only materials.
· Texas law resources (FindLaw) http://www.findlaw.com/11stategov/tx/laws.html
This can be found at the main Find Law site (http://www.findlaw.com/) under the category in the top middle of the page, For Legal Professionals, then under Browse by Jurisdiction, then find Texas – but, beware, all the FindLaw sites are notoriously slow to load.
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