The structure of the judiciary of Texas is laid out in Article 5 of the Constitution of Texas and is further defined by statute, in particular the Texas Government Code and Texas Probate Code. The structure is complex, featuring many layers of courts, numerous instances of overlapping jurisdiction (in terms of territory), several differences between counties, as well as an unusual bifurcated appellate system at the top level found in only one other state: Oklahoma. Municipal Courts are the most active courts, with County Courts and District Courts handling most other cases and often sharing the same courthouse.
Administration is the responsibility of the Supreme Court of Texas, which is aided by the Texas Office of Court Administration, Texas Judicial Council and the State Bar of Texas, which it oversees.
History and perception In the 19th century, Texas had a reputation for arbitrary "frontier justice"; in one notorious example highlighted by Stanford legal historian Lawrence M. Friedman, its appellate courts upheld a conviction of "guily" (where the t was omitted) in 1879 but reversed a conviction of "guity" (where the l was omitted) in 1886.Lawrence M. Friedman, Crime and Punishment in American History (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 256. To Friedman, this proved "that a 't' was less crucial than an 'l' in the law of Texas". As late as the 1870s, about a decade after the American Civil War, there was no functioning legal system in West Texas. The poor quality of the state's judicial system has been attributed to the state's shortage of proper law schools and law libraries in that era, as well as the traditional preference of Texans for "'self-help' justice as practiced in the courts of 'Judge Winchester' or 'Judge Lynch.'"
Courts
Texas is the only state besides Oklahoma to have a bifurcated appellate system at the highest level. The Texas Supreme Court hears appeals involving civil matters (which include juvenile cases), and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals hears appeals involving criminal matters. Sometimes, the dividing line is murky, especially with respect to jurisdiction in mandamus and habeas corpus cases. See, e.g. Justice Willett's dissent in In re Reece, 341 S.W.3d 360 (Tex. 2011) (orig. proceeding). The Texas Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals are co-equal, unlike in Oklahoma where the Supreme Court is superior to the highest criminal court.
Article V, Section 1, states:
Pursuant to this text, the Texas Legislature has created additional courts to address caseload pressures driven by population growth in different areas of the state. District courts are (usually) consecutively numbered regardless of whether they are specialize to handle criminal, civil, or family matters (though in some counties, Criminal District Courts have separate numbering systems, an example being Dallas County which has seven such courts and three Auxiliary Courts). The highest numbers indicate that the court was created recently, but the number alone provides no clue as to location of the new court and the appellate district within which it is located. As of March 2026, there are over 60 courts in Dallas County.
Further sections of Article V spell out the basic requirements for each court's jurisdiction and for its officers.
Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Texas hears appeals involving civil matters and does not hear any appeals involving criminal matters except when the defendant is a juvenile. Under Texas law, juvenile proceedings (even those which would be criminal if filed against an adult) are considered civil matters under the Texas Family Code; thus, the Texas Supreme Court hears such appeals, but generally defers to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) in matters where Texas criminal statutes have been interpreted. The Supreme Court also maintains responsibility for attorney licensing and discipline, and plays a more prominent role in promulgation and revision of court rules and in administration of the entire judicial system that does the CCA.
Court of Criminal Appeals The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals hears appeals in criminal cases. Cases in which the death penalty was imposed are directly and automatically appealed to this court, bypassing the intermediate Courts of Appeals, which hear both civil and criminal cases.
Courts of Appeals
Texas has 14 Courts of Appeals, which have intermediate appellate jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases. Death penalty cases, however, are automatically appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and thus skip the intermediate tier in the appellate court hierarchy. The term Court of Appeals (plural) should be capitalized because the generic term would include the two courts of last resorts also.
The total number of intermediate appellate seats is 80, with membership ranging from three to 13 justices per court, as set by statute. All cases are heard by a three-justice panel unless a hearing en banc is ordered (except where a particular court has only three justices assigned to it, in which instance all cases are automatically heard en banc; an example is the 12th Court of Appeals). The en banc process is used to maintain consistency in the court's jurisprudence, to overrule existing precedent that is binding on individual panels, and to set new precedent on an unsettled question of substantive law or procedure.
The Texas Legislature determines which counties are included within a particular court of appeals' district, and has shifted counties between courts to balance the docket. The Texas Supreme Court seeks to even out imbalances in appellate caseloads on an ongoing basis with docket-equalization orders that provide for transfers of batches of cases from the busiest appeals courts to others with spare capacity.
The First and the Fourteenth Courts of Appeal present a peculiarity: both have their seat at the re-purposed historic 1910 Harris County Courthouse in Houston and exercise concurrent jurisdiction over the same ten counties, the largest of which is Harris County. Parties who want to appeal a judgment or other order from a trial court in these counties are required to state in their notice of appeal that they wish to appeal to either the First or the Fourteenth Court of Appeals, and then have to wait for the result of random assignment to one or the other. They also have to disclose any prior appellate history of the same case in either one of the two courts. Both courts are served by the same clerk, currently Christopher Prine, whose office will issue an initial letter with instructions, along with the appellate docket number that will also reveal which court an appellant has drawn. Appeals are governed by the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure (TRAPs) and the local rules.
An even more bizarre situation occurs in East and North Texas, where the 6th Court has four counties – Gregg, Rusk, Upshur, and Wood – which overlap with the 12th Court, and also has Hunt County overlapping with the 5th Court.
List of District Courts of Appeals of Texas Court No.Counties in DistrictSeatJustices1 Austin, Colorado, Grimes, Washington, Brazoria, Fort Bend, Harris, Chambers, Galveston, WallerHouston92 Archer, Denton, Montague, Wichita, Clay, Hood, Parker, Wise, Cooke, Jack, Tarrant, Young Fort Worth73Bastrop, Bell, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Coke, Comal, Concho, Fayette, Hays, Irion, Lampasas, Lee, Llano, McCulloch, Milam, Mills, Runnels, San Saba, Schleicher, Sterling, Tom Green, Travis, WilliamsonAustin64Atascosa, Gillespie, Kinney, Starr, Bandera, Guadalupe, La Salle, Sutton, Bexar, Jim Hogg, McMullen, Uvalde, Brooks, Jim Wells, Mason, Val Verde, Dimmit, Karnes, Maverick, Webb, Duval, Kendall, Medina, Wilson, Edwards, Kerr, Menard, Zapata, Frio, Kimble, Real, ZavalaSan Antonio75Collin, Grayson, Kaufman, Dallas, Hunt, RockwallDallas136Bowie, Franklin, Lamar, Rusk, Camp, Gregg, Marion, Titus, Cass, Harrison, Morris, Upshur, Delta, Hopkins, Panola, Wood, Fannin, Hunt, Red RiverTexarkana37Armstrong, Dickens, Hockley, Parmer, Bailey, Donley, Hutchinson, Potter, Briscoe, Floyd, Kent, Randall, Carson, Foard, King, Roberts, Castro, Garza, Lamb, Sherman, Childress, Gray, Lipscomb, Swisher, Cochran, Hale, Lubbock, Terry, Collingsworth, Hall, Lynn, Wheeler, Cottle, Hansford, Moore, Wilbarger, Crosby, Hardeman, Motley, Yoakum, Dallam, Hartley, Ochiltree, Deaf Smith, Hemphill, OldhamAmarillo48Andrews, El Paso, Presidio, Ward, Brewster, Hudspeth, Reagan, Winkler, Crane, Jeff Davis, Reeves, Crockett, Loving, Terrell, Culberson, Pecos, UptonEl Paso39Hardin, Liberty, Orange, Tyler, Jasper, Montgomery, Polk, Jefferson, Newton, San JacintoBeaumont410Bosque, Falls, Leon, Navarro, Brazos, Freestone, Limestone, Robertson, Burleson, Hamilton, McLennan, Somervell, Coryell, Hill, Madison, Walker Ellis, JohnsonWaco311Baylor, Eastland, Howard, Palo Pinto, Borden, Ector, Jones, Scurry, Brown, Erath, Knox, Shackelford, Callahan, Fisher, Martin, Stephens, Coleman, Gaines, Midland, Stonewall, Comanche, Glasscock, Mitchell, Taylor, Dawson, Haskell, Nolan, ThrockmortonEastland412Anderson, Houston, Sabine, Trinity, Angelina, Nacogdoches, San Augustine, Upshur, Cherokee, Rains, Shelby, Van Zandt, Gregg, Rusk, Smith, Wood, HendersonTyler313Aransas, Goliad, Kleberg, Refugio, Bee, Gonzales, Lavaca, San Patricio, Calhoun, Hidalgo, Live Oak, Victoria, Cameron, Jackson, Matagorda, Wharton, De Witt, Kenedy, Nueces, WillacyCorpus Christi614Austin, Colorado, Grimes, Washington, Brazoria, Fort Bend, Harris, Chambers, Galveston, WallerHouston9
District Courts The Texas district courts are the trial courts of general jurisdiction.
The district court has exclusive jurisdiction over felony cases, cases involving title to land, and election contest cases. It shares jurisdiction with the county courts, and in some case justice of the peace courts, for civil cases (its lowest limit for hearing a case is a mere $200 in controversy, while JP courts can hear cases up to $10,000). Family law jurisdiction varies depending on the existence of a county court-at-law; in some counties, the district courts share jurisdiction over divorces, child custody and support matters, adoptions and child welfare cases with county courts at law. Probate jurisdiction varies, depending on the existence of a statutory probate court in the county. In some larger counties, such as Harris County, the district courts are specialized, with designated sets of courts hearing criminal cases, juvenile cases, family matters, and non-family civil cases in four different court houses surrounding the square with the underground jury assembly facility, which suffered severe flood damage in Hurricane Harvey. In the smaller counties, a single district court handles all types of cases. In rural areas, as many as five counties share a single district court; urban counties.