Court Systems

You must create a court system for the newly created state of Puerto Rico. You are to work under the assumption that Puerto Rico has just been admitted as the 51st state and build your court system from the bottom up. To be certain you understand how courts are organized in other states, you must research at least three current state court systems, within the United States, and use those systems to create Puerto Rico’s system. Do not use Puerto Rico’s current system as one of your examples. You must describe your proposal for creating Puerto Rico’s municipal courts, major trial courts, appellate courts, and the state’s highest court. Include geographic jurisdictions.

You must also describe how judges will be chosen for each court and must discuss how judicial and attorney ethical standards will be structured and enforced. You should conduct basic research on Puerto Rico (size, geography, population, existing counties or municipios, etc.) to be certain your proposed system will actually work.

Remember to provide citations when you borrow some idea or structure from another state.

The body (not including cover page, works cited/bibliography, etc.) of the paper must be 10-12 pages in length, double spaced, using Times New Roman 12-point font. A works cited page or bibliography (depending on the citation system used) must be included. Submitting too many pages will have the same result as submitting too few pages. Any images, charts, etc., used in the paper should be submitted as exhibits and are not included in the page count requirement.

Papers previously submitted for credit in another class, including POSC 340: Judicial Process (for students who may have taken the course previously), may not be submitted for credit in this class. Any paper previously submitted must be substantially modified or totally re-written so that no more than 30% of the language matches on the Turnitin report when the paper is submitted. All students must complete the Columbia College plagiarism tutorial/quiz in the quiz section of the course.