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ABA Family Legal Guide
How the Legal System Works
The Civil Trial: Step by Step
Procedures After Trial
How do appeals work?
Appeals courts review the procedures of lower courts and ensure that the law was properly applied. As a general rule, they do not retry cases. They don't hear witnesses and weigh evidence. Instead, in an appeal, the appellant must persuade the court to reverse the trial court's judgment because of some significant legal errors that occurred during the trial, such as the improper admission or exclusion of evidence, or erroneous instructions on the law given by the judge to the jury, which are likely to have affected the result. The appellee, on the other hand, will seek to persuade the court that no error was made in the lower court or that if there was an error, it was harmless because it did not affect the outcome. A printed transcript of the trial court proceedings, together with the original papers and exhibits, may be forwarded to the court for consideration in deciding the appeal.
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Side Bar - Appellant and Appellee The appellant is the party who appeals, that is, the party who carries his case to a higher court after receiving an adverse order in the lower court. The appellee is the party against whom an appeal is filed, and the one who must answer allegations of the appellant in the appeal. Appellees are sometimes referred to as respondents, because they must respond to the appellant's case on appeal. |
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