J
A public official with authority
to determine a cause or question in a court of justice and to preside over the
proceedings therein.
The authority of a court to hear
and decide an action or lawsuit. (2) The geographical district over which the
power of a court extends. Jurisdiction is limited when the court has power to
act only in certain specified cases; general, or residual, when it may act in
all cases in which the parties are before it, except for those cases which are
within the exclusive jurisdiction of another court; concurrent, when the same
cause may be entertained by one court or another; original, when the court has
power to try to case in the first instance; appellate, when the court hears cases
only on appeal, certiorari, or writ of error from another court; exclusive,
when no other court has power to hear and decide the same matter. (3) Subject&-matter
jurisdiction defines the courts authority to hear a given type of case. (4)
Personal jurisdiction requires that the court personally summon the defendant
within its geographical district, or that it summon the defendant under the
authority of a long&-arm statute. This protects the individual interest
that is implicated when a nonresident defendant is haled into a distant and
possibly inconvenient court.
Law. (2) A body of law. (3)
Philosophy of law.
A body of citizens sworn to
deliver a true verdict upon evidence submitted to them in a judicial
proceeding. They are respectively called, jurymen or jurys. A grand jury is one
summoned to consider whether the evidence presented by the state against a
person accused of crime, warrants his indictment. A petty or petit jury is the
jury for the trial of cases, either civil or criminal. It usually consists of
twelve persons, but by various statutes in many of the states, and in England,
a lesser number may constitute a jury in some courts. A special or struck jury
is one selected especially for trial of a given cause, usually by the assistance
of the parties.
