Criminal
Louisiana State Criminal — Type E Mixed Jurisdiction
Louisiana is the canonical Type E jurisdiction — the only U.S. state with a civilian-law substantive heritage on the civil side. The criminal track adopts common-law statutory procedure, so the civilian dimension matters less here than it does for property, contracts, and successions. What does matter for the criminal map: La. Const. Art. V § 5(D) creates two structural bypasses from District Court directly to the Louisiana Supreme Court, skipping the Court of Appeal. Capital cases bypass; cases declaring laws unconstitutional bypass. No other state criminal track in this project has a comparable structural feature.
Wyoming State Criminal — Type C Two-Tier
Wyoming is the canonical Type C example: a two-tier system with no intermediate appellate court. The Wyoming Supreme Court is the sole appellate authority — the felony trial record goes directly from District Court to the apex without an intermediate stop. This is the structural feature that defines Type C and the structural pressure-point that defines its impedance profile: preservation pressure is maximally concentrated at the trial level.
California State Criminal — Type A Three-Tier Unified
California is the canonical Type A example: three-tier unified system (Superior Court → Court of Appeal → California Supreme Court) with a single apex for both criminal and civil matters. Trial courts unified in 1998 — there are no separate municipal or justice courts. Judicial selection is merit-based rather than partisan, which produces meaningfully different institutional alignment than Texas-style statewide partisan election.
Texas State Criminal — Type B Bifurcated
The Texas state criminal track is structurally distinctive: a bifurcated apex (Court of Criminal Appeals for criminal matters; Texas Supreme Court for civil), and a de novo retrial at the County Court at Law level that resets all preservation obligations. This page maps the five-court path with full receiver profiles, transition mechanics, and the four-lens matrix.