What is considered appropriate dress for a magisterial district court? I have made a civil complaint in my local magisterial district court and received a notice to defend from the defendant, so I will need to go to court at the end of this week. I have lost some weight due to exercise recently and my suit no longer fits comfortably (nor looks very good). I'm also not sure where my tie is. Unfortunately, the notice to defend was lost in the mail and I just found out five minutes ago that I will need to show up for court. Is it appropriate to show up to court in slacks and a golf-T, or slacks and a button down shirt, instead of a suit? Or should I wear the suit and try to make it look as best I can? My first instinct was that magisterial courts may be more lax than county courts, but my second instinct was that magisterial judges may be more sensitive to dress due to that very presumption. I am looking for a practical answer to this question. While I know that there likely isn't any absolutely enforced dress code, dressing too casually will surely bias the judge against me. I would like to know where the line is likely to fall for most judges.
You should definitely wear a tie with a button down dress shirt appropriate to wear a tie with (I am assuming you have male gender identity based upon your question). Slacks and a sports coat would probably be acceptable in lieu of a suit if you are pro se rather than a lawyer. Many judges expect at least a jacket and tie from men. Another approach, if this involves your profession or business, is to wear what would would wear to work, e.g., a work uniform. But, local custom varies considerably, and you didn't state where you are located. If you really want to be sure, go to the court on a day before your appearance date early in the morning when court opens and observe what other people are wearing for ten minutes. This will also prevent you from being late to court on the day you are set to appear because you get lost or have trouble locating a parking lot or didn't realize how long it would take to get past security.
If there is a divorce case and through the process of declaring a parties financial position it comes out that one of the parties has dodged a bit of tax can that evidence be held against them? Generally speaking yes, unless the relevant prosecutor's office provides a grant of immunity from prosecution for the matters disclosed, which basically never happens in a divorce case or ordinary civil case. This is why it is sometimes necessary to invoke the 5th Amendment in the context of a civil case. Does a judge have the duty to report any law-breaking that arises in civil cases No. It isn't improper for a judge to report law-breaking that is observed in the course of litigation before that judge, but the judge has no duty to do so (absent some very specialized exceptions like treason), and, in practice, rarely does report law-breaking not directly before the judge to evaluate. In contrast, in criminal cases, during the pre-trial phase of a case (and especially in the pre-arrest phase of a case), a judge often has a duty to keep knowledge of crimes obtained in that way secret until it is disclosed by the prosecution (unless the prosecution improperly fails to disclose something that it is required to disclose). This is so that criminals aren't &quot;tipped off&quot; by a judge of an impending arrest. A judge in Colorado was recently prosecuted and removed from the bench for a disclosure of that kind. or is a civil case confidential between the two parties? A judge can seal a civil case, or limit public access to certain documents, but that is the exception and not the norm and has to overcome constitutional protections of the public's right to public trials that media organizations frequently enforce successfully. Confidentiality between the parties can only be imposed for &quot;good cause.&quot; Hiding the fact that you cheated on your taxes from tax collection agencies does not constitute good cause. Footnote Most U.S. jurisdictions have an ethical rule for lawyers that prohibits them from threatening to take administrative or criminal actions to gain advantage in a civil case, although the exact details vary quite a bit from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This does not apply to clients of lawyers acting unilaterally and without guidance from their lawyers.
Someone has pulled a sample motion of this type off of PACER (the public access Internet portal to civil filings in federal court). The example is more formal and structured than a lot of state court motion practice would be, however (e.g. few state court's require or encourage motions with a table of contents and a table of authorities). This example is 36 pages long, and many states don't even allow motions to run for more than 10-15 pages without leave of the court to do so in advance. There is a New Jersey federal court example here which is also on the formal and fussy side (although, in part, because the motion isn't just an arbitration motion and is also raising several additional unrelated issues which if omitted would cut it in half). See also one here. Another example, from a California state court, is closer to the mark for a typical state court filing. A court that handles residential landlord-tenant matters is probably even more &quot;casual&quot; and probably expects motions to get to the point more quickly. The core content is probably solid, although it would have to be customized to reference the state law statutory and procedural rules rather than the federal rules of civil procedure, and to analyze and set forth the facts of your case rather than those of some random person whose pleading is linked. This would also have to be adopted to state court practice standard, which typically uses different formatting for captions, signature blocks, whether or not line numbering is required, etc., and is often subject to other requirements. Some require that a certificate of service be filed as a separate document, while others routinely incorporate it in the main document. Many state courts require that a proposed order be submitted with a motion as a matter of state or local court rules, a few states require a cover sheet to be filed with motions, many states require you to confer with the other side in the case and to recite their position opposing or supporting the motion, or something in between, before filing it, and some courts require you to notify them once the deadline for a response has passed, regarding whether an opposition has been filed to the motion's request for relief or not. Similarly, some states courts require that motions be &quot;verified&quot; (i.e. have their allegations confirmed under oath) or supported by an affidavit setting forth the factual matters alleged in them. New York State structures a lot of motions as &quot;orders to show cause&quot; in which the court preliminarily reviews the relief requested and issues an order telling the other side that it will do something if they don't file an objection showing good cause for the court not to rule in that way by a given day, which must be formally delivered (i.e. &quot;served&quot;) upon the other side by a deadline. I don't know if New Jersey local motion practice is similar. Many court systems also charge a &quot;new case&quot; filing fee for motions to compel arbitration that does not apply to other kinds of motions. Ideally, you'd want to review some motions (about pretty much anything) to get a feel for how this is usually done in New Jersey.
There are a lot more differences than this, but if your teacher sums up what he/she means by that sentence. Here, specifically, in Civil Law, the decision of the courts must comply with the laws as enacted, which means there are specific statutes required to make something illegal. Common Law features Stare Decisis which basically means that if Case A is decided in one way, and Case B is a similar Case to Case B, Case B must yield the same decision for all cases in that jurisdiction and lower courts below that court. This means that while statutes (laws) can be made by a legislature, the courts can "make law" by deciding cases. For example, some States in the United States and England and Wales only recently (within the past 30 years) adopted an actual law that made murder illegal? Prior to that murder was illegal under Common Law Murder that had been based on precedence from bazillion cases before that said it's illegal. Nobody bothered to write it down in an actual law. There are several other big differences such as Inquisitorial vs. Adversarial nature of courts, how and when punishments are decided (The famous "Just following Orders" Defense was given in part because of this difference and a lack of understanding over it.), who is the trier of fact vs. who is the trier of law, but as far as what is "Law" this is a good single summation of the difference in a single sentence. But it really shouldn't be condensed to a single sentence.
&quot;Why&quot; someone did something is potentially off-topic, but in regards to your hierarchical image - it lacks provenance so cannot be tested, however according to the official judiciary website: The Master of the Rolls is second in judicial importance to the Lord Chief Justice.
The most innocent of your scenarios is "against the rules", so less innocent acts fair worse. The idea behind researching legal theory and precedent (presumably not presidents) is that surely it is good for a juror to know what the law is. But that thinking is wrong. The judge will instruct you as to what the law is, and will also instruct you that "the law" is limited to what he says it is. I will draw on the instructions for an antitrust case, Best Buy v. Toshiba, HannStar. The core instruction is: It is your duty to find the facts from all the evidence in the case. To those facts you will apply the law as I give it to you. The preliminary instructions (the pattern instructions for California civil trials) say the same basic thing: At the end of the trial, I will explain the law that you must follow to reach your verdict. You must follow the law as I explain it to you, even if you do not agree with the law. The judge instructs the jury that: When a party has the burden of proof on any claim or affirmative defense by a preponderance of the evidence, it means you must be persuaded by the evidence that the claim or affirmative defense is more probably true than not true. Your research might find alternative statements of the law out there, which seem entirely plausible. That doesn't matter: you have to set aside whatever ideas (about the law) that you've gotten from anybody besides the judge. In fact, if the judge makes a (serious) mistake and rules against a party in a manner that is contrary to established law, and you know this (it doesn't matter how), you are supposed to apply the law (including rulings during trial as to admissibility) as given to you by the judge. As for a case of a juror knowing that the judge was mistaken (specifically, knowing based on his pre-existing knowledge of statutes and case law – not based on forbidden research during a trial), we can get the "should" from the absolute instruction to follow the judges instructions. Additionally, if you read transcripts of voir dire (not a trivial task), you can observe judges probing attorneys who happen to be in the prospective pool, asking questions to determine whether that person can just do as they are told. But it would be difficult to establish a "hard rule". There never will be an instruction that says "You must follow my orders even if you know for a fact that my orders are wrong" – jury instructions never admit the possibility of judicial error.
The alternative is the same whether just one lower court or many lower courts ignore SCOTUS precedent. An aggrieved parts will appeal the lower court ruling, and the matter will work its way up the ladder until SCOTUS directly rules on this application of the law. This sort of happens all the time, when lower courts don't apply the ostensive "final ruling" because they find that there is some other overriding consideration ("that rule only applies to businesses employing more than 50 people"). Where the case to be remanded to lower courts for further proceedings consistent with SCOTUS opinion and still the lower courts refuse to comply, i.e open rebellion, SCOTUS could rule that non-compliance by lower courts constitutes contempt, and an order could be issued for the removal (in some form) of offending parties (we may presume, the justices of the lower court). The statute outlining court power allows on order of imprisonment for "disobedience or resistance to its lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command". Federal marshals would then arrest non-compliant judges, unless the marshals too are in open rebellion. If the judges in question were federal judges, the marshals would have to decide whether to obey the order of SCOTUS vs. the order of the district or circuit court. Since under the US Constitution states that "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish", it is objectively established that SCOTUS rulings are superior, so provided that the marshals elect to uphold their oath of office, they will enforce the SCOTUS ruling. However, citizen action becomes irrelevant once SCOTUS has made its ruling, and the matter has moved from legal determination of fact to enforcement of established fact.
The Equality Act (2010) lists the following protected classes (emphasis mine): age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; sexual orientation. It is unlawful for businesses to discriminate against anyone, in the goods or services (or physical access) that they offer, based on any of those characteristics. Some disabilities may prevent people from wearing masks, and those people cannot be discriminated against. I couldn't find a source in the law that says this explicitly, but according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission there is no legal requirement for people who have disabilities to be able to prove that they are disabled in order to receive accommodations for their disabilities. While you could, theoretically, ask people to prove that they have a disability if you don't believe them, you'd basically just be setting yourself up to have to pay a bunch of money in compensation when you eventually run in to somebody who actually does have such a disability, and doesn't have proof with them, who then takes you to court for discrimination and wins.