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OVERALL STRUCTURE OF THE NEW JERSEY SUPERIOR COURT

Summary by A. CRATER, August 2011

S. H. Curcio September 2015

The New Jersey Superior Court is separated into two divisions, the Trial Division and the Appellate Division. The Appellate Division receives a case after a Superior Court judge issues a decision and a party to the case files an appeal. Appeals are necessarily legal in nature, and do not involve witness testimony or presentation of evidence. Appellate Court decisions are made by a panel of judges who review the record of the lower court and arguments of Counsel which arguments are written in briefs and may be argued orally.

The Superior Court-Trial Division handles all matters that are before a court for a verdict, remedy, disposition or other court order that involves the parties, directly. The Trial Division of Superior Court is, itself, divided into two separate divisions, the Civil Division and the Criminal Division. 

The Criminal Division handles indictable criminal charges, which are known in some states as felony charges.  In New Jersey these criminal charges are simply called “crimes”. (Lesser offenses are not heard in the Superior Court but are in the Municipal Court and they are called “disorderly persons offenses”). All cases before the Superior Court’s Criminal Division are rooted in the New Jersey Criminal Code, which defines the parameters of every crime. The Criminal Code also gives the degree of every crime and specifies the range of sentence for each crime. The Criminal Division is its own Part (the Criminal Part) and is not divided into other sections or courts.

In contrast, the Civil Division has several sections of our Judiciary within it, including Family Part, Family Part-Juvenile and General Civil Part.  “Civil Division” does not mean the same thing as “General Civil Part.” Civil Part is only a section of the Civil Division. The Civil Part handles various matters, which are generally disputes that are economic in nature. The types of cases heard in Civil Part include personal injury suits, medical malpractice suits, breach of contract cases and wrongful termination suits.  Thus the Civil Part issues orders and accepts verdicts that have a monetary impact on the parties.

Family Part is also a section of the Civil Division, but the Civil Part and Family Part are entirely separate entities.  Some of our course materials concerning child protection in a national context will often say that cases concerning children are heard in civil court or they may even say that “dependency” or “child welfare” cases involving children are heard in the “juvenile” court.  In New Jersey, however, the court structure is more particular.   Although our Family Part is within the Civil Division, there are three separate units. One unit handles all divorce, custody and visitation cases. Another unit handles child protection, guardianship and termination of parental rights where children are alleged to have been the subject of child maltreatment of some type. The third unit handles Juvenile Delinquency cases where children under the age of 18 are accused of having committed an act that would have been a disorderly persons offense or a crime if committed by an adult.

The modules in this course will be focused on the work of the child protection unit of the family court, the juvenile delinquency unit of the family court and of the criminal court to the extent that children may be called upon to play the role of victims or witnesses in the criminal cases.

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