Researching County-Level Courthouses with the State Court Organization App

Step 1: Go to http://www.ncsc.org/sco and click on the link for the Interactive State Court Organization App

 

 

Step 2: Click on '3. Trial Courts'

 

 

 

Step 3: Click on '3.1 Trial Courts'

 

 

 

Step 4: Click on '3.1b Geographic Jurisdiction'

 

 

 

Step 5: Scroll through the list of states and look for 'County' level jurisdictions, OR select the state you are interested in researching:

 

 

Steps 2-5:

 

 

 

NOTE: Keep in mind that some states will be listed with multiple county-level courts (e.g. Delaware), and some states will not be listed with any county-level courts (e.g. North Carolina).

 

However, just because a state is not listed with a ‘Geographic Jurisdiction’ of ‘County’ does not mean that there are no county-level courthouses operating within the state.

 

 

 

 

 

 


North Carolina, for example, has a unified Judicial Branch, in which several counties may be grouped together to form a single Judicial District (http://www.nccourts.org/County/Default.asp). Each county within North Carolina has a courthouse that should be collected.

 

Even though the North Carolina courthouses are listed as ‘District’ courts serving a ‘District/Circuit’ jurisdiction, each county has a courthouse that operates at the county level.  



  

NOTE: For states with multiple county-level courts, additional research will be required to identify the one that best suits the ‘County Courthouse’ definition outlined in our Structures List.

 
 
 
 
 
Although Delaware has several courts that operate at the county level, according to their official website, there are only three main courthouse buildings in the state.
 
**When editing, your focus should be on adding points to the map for courthouse buildings, not individual courts.**
 
The SCO App lists individual courts that operate at a county level, but it doesn't tell us whether or not these courts are housed in a single courthouse building, or if they are located in different buildings:
 


 

After doing some additional research on the Delaware Courts website, we learn that there is a courthouse located in each of Delaware’s three counties:

 

Kent County Courthouse

New Castle County Courthouse (which is now the Leonard L. Williams Justice Center)

Sussex County Courthouse

 
Each of these three courthouses house several of the courts listed in the SCO App (Court of Chancery, Court of Common Pleas, etc.). But since we are not collecting individual courts within a courthouse, we only need to add three points to the map; one for each of those three main county courthouse buildings (Kent County Courthouse, Leonard L. Williams Justice Center, and the Sussex County Courthouse).
 
Make sure to refer to our Naming Guidelines before entering information about the courthouse.