What Is Appeal?
A request to a higher court to review and reverse a lower court's decision. The losing party argues that a legal error was made that affected the outcome. Appeals courts generally do not retry cases — they review whether the law was applied correctly.
Quick Answer
A request to a higher court to review and reverse a lower court's decision. The losing party argues that a legal error was made that affected the outcome. Appeals courts generally do not retry cases — they review whether the law was applied correctly.
Full Explanation
An appeal is a request to a higher court to review a lower court's ruling. Appeals are not new trials — courts of appeals do not hear new evidence, re-examine witnesses, or retry the facts. They review whether legal errors were made in the proceedings below that affected the outcome.
The party filing the appeal is called the appellant (or petitioner); the other party is the appellee (or respondent). Appeals are initiated by filing a notice of appeal within a specific deadline (often 30 days in civil cases, shorter in criminal cases).
Appellate courts apply different standards of review depending on what is being reviewed. Legal questions (how to interpret a statute, for example) are reviewed de novo — the appellate court decides the legal question fresh, with no deference to the trial court. Factual findings are reviewed for clear error — the appeals court defers to the trial court's factual determinations unless they are clearly wrong. Discretionary rulings (like a decision to admit or exclude evidence) are reviewed for abuse of discretion — a very deferential standard.
Not every error requires reversal. Only errors that are 'prejudicial' — meaning they likely affected the outcome — result in a new trial or changed judgment. 'Harmless error' is insufficient to reverse.
In the federal system, cases typically go from the district court (trial level) to the circuit court of appeals, and then potentially to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court hears most cases by certiorari — a discretionary process where at least four justices must agree to hear the case.
Real-World Example
A defendant is convicted at trial and sentenced to ten years in prison. His lawyer believes the trial judge incorrectly excluded key alibi evidence. He appeals to the court of appeals, arguing the evidentiary ruling was reversible error. The appeals court reviews the record and agrees the exclusion was an abuse of discretion — it remands the case for a new trial.
In Citizens United v. FEC (2010), the Supreme Court reversed lower court rulings and overturned prior precedents on campaign finance — illustrating how a single Supreme Court appeal can change constitutional law for the entire country.
Why It Matters for Law Students
Appeals are the mechanism by which legal errors are corrected and legal rules are developed. Most of the law students study comes from appellate decisions. Understanding how appeals work, what standards of review apply, and how cases move through the system is fundamental to every area of law.