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UWM2011Studia Prawnoustrojowe 13379Edyta SokalskaUniwersytet Warmiñsko-MazurskiFederalism and the American court organizationThe study tries to provide some guidance and identify the court organizationin the United States and to show the influence of federalism on thissystem. Instead of a single, unified court system the United States have fiftyone court systems. The courts of the United States include both: the UnitesStates federal courts comprising the judicial branch of the federal governmentof the United States and state and territorial courts of individual U.S.states and territories. This situation results in serious consequences for theAmerican legal system. There is tremendous diversity among the individualstates. A trial court may be called a district court in one state, a superior orsupreme court in another. Each state is free to determinate for itself whatbehavior is forbidden, and each is free to establish reasonable punishmentfor defined crimes. But it is noticeable that state courts have their jurisdictionlimited in some way.1. FederalismIt is impossible to understand the legal system of the United Stateswithout understanding its structure of government. The governmental structurewas established by the Constitution of 1789. The two characteristics ofthat structure which most directly affect the legal system are “separation ofpowers” and “federalism”. The separation of powers principle assures thatthree branches of federal government – legislative, executive or judicial – arenot able to overstep the boundaries of its proper constitutional role and takeover power belonging to the others. It will be shown that the separation ofpowers influences significantly the legal system, especially, the role of thefederal courts.There are different national governance systems all over the world.Governments may be classified in terms of the geographic distribution of