Authorities:
Acts of Alabama, 1911. Montgomery: The Brown Printing Company, 1911.
Alabama Government Manual. University of Alabama: Bureau of Public Administration, 1959.
Code of Alabama 1940. Chapter 3, Sec. 85-111. Charlottesville: The Michie Company, 1941.
Owen, Thomas McAdory. History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, Vol. I. Spartanburg: The Reprint Company, 1978.
The Ala. Court of Appeals was a statutory court established by the legislature on 1911 Mar. 9 to relieve the crowded docket of the State Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals exercised final appellate jurisdiction over all suits at law involving less than one thousand dollars, all misdemeanors, including the violation of town and city ordinances, bastardy, habeas corpus and all felonies for which punishment was set at twenty years or less. The Court had no jurisdiction in cases involving the title to or possession of lands (Acts of Ala. 1911, Nov. 121, Sec. 2).
The Court was composed of three judges possessing the same qualifications as state supreme court justices. The first judges were appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate; thereafter judges were popularly elected to six-year staggered terms.
The Court was authorized to exercise original jurisdiction in the determination and issuance of writs of quo warranto and mandamus in relation to matters in its appellate jurisdiction. It had authority to issue writs of injunction, habeas corpus, certiorari and supersedeas to all inferior courts within its appellate jurisdiction.
The state was divided into eight appellate divisions, corresponding to the divisions of the Supreme Court. The Appellate Court held sessions on the afternoons of all days on which calls were had during the morning hours of the Supreme Court (Owen, Vol. I, p. 426).
The decisions and proceedings of the Supreme Court governed the holdings and decisions of the Court of Appeals, and the appellate court was subject to the general superintendence and control of the Supreme Court (Acts of Ala. 1911, No. 121, Sec. 10).
The State Attorney General in person or by assistant was required to represent the state in criminal cases, and in all civil suits in which the state was a party (Owen, Vol. I, p. 426).
The marshal and librarian of the Supreme Court also served in those offices for the Court of Appeals. The judges of the Court of Appeals appointed a clerk of the court, whose duty it was to issue and sign all writs and process of every description, issued under authority of the court; to keep in regular order the papers, dockets, and records of the court; to keep an appearance, trial, motion, and execution docket; to enter the day-to-day judgments and proceedings of the court; to send, immediately after the expiration of the time allowed by the court for a call of a division of the state, certificates of the action of the Court of Appeals, showing the date, number and character of the judgment, order or decree appealed from with the decision of the court; within ten days after the reversal of any judgment or decree to send to the court below a certified copy of the opinion of the Court of Appeals; and at the end of each term, to have bound the transcripts of the records of all cases, with a copy of the orders made and of the final judgment or decree in each case, and the manuscript opinions of the court decided during that term (Acts of Ala. 1911, No. 121, Sec. 13).
The clerk was also responsible for the collection of fees and costs incurred during the hearing of cases. Fees were the same as those required in the Supreme Court for similar services. The clerk submitted a monthly statement to the State Auditor listing the collection and disbursement of fees and costs (Acts of Ala. 1911, No. 121, Sec. 16).
In 1969 Sept. the Legislature abolished the Court of Appeals and established a Court of Criminal Appeals and a Court of Civil Appeals (Acts of Ala. 1969, Vol. II, p. 1745).
From the description of Agency history record. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 145408618
