Almost all court verdicts can go through the appeals process if one side of the matter doesn’t agree to the verdict. An appeal is a petition for a higher court to revisit the verdict from the lower court to determine if it’s valid.
There are some very important points people need to know about appealing court verdicts. These may help you to better understand exactly what it means to appeal to something.
Appeals are very limited
Appeals are very limited because you must have a valid reason to appeal. You cannot appeal a verdict simply because you don’t agree with it. Instead, there has to be something legal that was not handled correctly. This could be incompetence of representation or an error with how the law was applied.
New evidence isn’t permitted
You cannot introduce new evidence during an appeal. The appellate court will only consider what was included in the original trial that’s being appealed. Appellate court judges are interested in only the written briefs and will scrutinize the lower court’s actions based on the information contained in those briefs.
Written arguments are common
An appeal usually occurs with only written arguments. If the appellate court has any questions or feels that more information is needed, it can set a time for verbal arguments. The written briefs must be detailed and clearly show why the appellate court needs to address the issue.
It is imperative that you work with someone familiar with the procedures of an appellate court because these are vastly different from other courts. These are time-sensitive cases, so be sure you act quickly when you know you want to appeal.
