Admiralty
Court - The colonial charter gave the Lord Proprietor the
right to set up any courts for land or sea that he deemed necessary. However,
no specific courts were established to hear cases in maritime law. The Provincial Court
sat in admiralty to hear such cases. Not until the royal period (1692-1717) was
any serious effort devoted to the establishment of an admiralty court in the
colony. Every Royal Governor was commissioned a Vice Admiral and Admiralty
Courts appear to have sat on each shore. Following the restoration of the
Proprietary government, no Admiralty
Court sat in Maryland until a Vice Admiral was
commissioned in 1756. The court's jurisdiction included contracts, accounts,
wages, treason, piracy, felonies, fugitives, mayhem, and bottomry
(cases in which a shipowner put the ship up as
security for a loan). The Constitution of 1776 established an Admiralty Court to
try capture and seizures made and brought into Maryland ports. The court functioned until
1789, when the U.S. Constitution assigned admiralty jurisdiction to the federal courts.
Chancery Court - handled equity cases, i.e., matters
requiring an equitable solution, such as estate settlements, title to land, and
divorce. The Provincial Court
exercised exclusive jurisdiction over equity proceedings until 1669. Thereafter
and until 1715 all equity cases were heard by the Chancery Court. In 1715 the
county courts were given exclusive jurisdiction over cases where the value in
dispute was under 1,200 pounds of tobacco or £5 sterling. In 1763 the county courts were granted
concurrent jurisdiction with the Chancery Court in cases involving less than
5,000 pounds of tobacco or £20 sterling. All
cases in which a greater amount was in dispute were heard in the Chancery
Court. The maximum amount for concurrent jurisdiction with the county courts
was raised in 1792 to 10,000 pounds of tobacco or £100
current money. In 1815 all jurisdictional limitations were removed and
litigants could institute equity proceedings in either the Chancery Court or a
county court. One type of equity case, divorce, was not initially handled by
any court. Until 1842 only the General Assembly could grant a divorce.
Thereafter, the Chancery Court, county courts, and General Assembly held
concurrent jurisdiction.
County Courts - The exact date of establishment of a separate
county court in St. Mary’s County is impossible to determine, because the early
local records of the county are not extant. During the first years of
settlement the court that sat in St. Mary’s City, which became the Provincial Court,
handled all judicial matters, because most people that constituted the white
population of Maryland
lived nearby. The first mention of St. Mary’s as a county is not found until
1637, and not until 1644 is there a record of justices of the peace being
appointed specifically for the county. Periodically after 1644 the governor
commissioned justices for the county court who held office at his pleasure. The
number of county justices appointed at any one time varied from three to
nineteen. Some appointees were designated justices of the quorum, meaning that
at least one of them had to be present in order to hold court. After 1733,
members of the governor’s council were included in the commissions for all
county courts.
As
the Maryland
judicial structure evolved into separate courts, the jurisdiction of each
became more defined. The county courts handled three types of cases—-criminal,
civil, and equity. Besides judicial responsibilities, the county courts
performed other functions assigned to them by law. In regard to orphans, the
county courts appointed and supervised their guardians or bound the children
out as apprentices. The register of wills and orphans court took over the
former duty in 1777 and the latter in 1794. In addition, until 1795 each county
court served as the administrative agency of county government. It adjusted and
paid expenses chargeable to the county, set the tax rate to meet these costs,
and supervised maintenance of roads, courthouse, and jail. In 1795 the
newly—created county levy courts assumed most of these responsibilities.
Court of Appeals - The Court of Appeals
originated in the seventeenth century. During the early years of the settlement
of Maryland,
the General Assembly sat as a court of law as well as a legislature. When the
assembly divided into two houses in 1650, the upper house, or governor and
council, became the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals was reformed by the
Maryland Constitution of 1776. Judges were appointed by the governor with the
advice and consent of the council. The court sat on the WesternShore in Annapolis. By 1805, chief justices of the six
judicial districts of the state constituted the Court of Appeals. From 1805 to
1851, the court sat at Easton on the Eastern
Shore as well as at Annapolis.
The Constitution of 1851 provided for a single Court of Appeals, which sat at Annapolis. Judges were
chosen by the electorate.
General Court - The Maryland Constitution of 1776 renamed the Provincial Court as
the General Court, which was divided geographically into the General Courts of
the Eastern and WesternShores.
Levy Lists or Levy Courts were
maintained by carious county courts, and were records of
expenditures by the government, made to individuals for services
performed--taking care of orphan children or indigent elderly, for
bringing in so many squirrels' heads, for working on roads, and so forth. It is
one of the few types of records where the names of women may expect to be
found.
Judicial Districts - Independence
from England and the
establishment of a state government initially brought few changes to the system
of county courts in Maryland
except that thereafter justices were appointed by the governor and council to
serve during good behavior. In 1790 the General Assembly passed a law dividing
the State into five judicial districts, with the first district being composed
of Calvert, Charles, Prince George’s,
and St. Mary’s counties. Under this law the county court was composed of a
chief judge appointed for the district and two associate judges appointed from
each county. Justices of the peace were no longer members of the county court.
A reorganization of the judicial system in 1806 divided the state into six
judicial districts, with Charles, Prince
George’s, and St. Mary’s counties constituting the
first district. The governor and council appointed a chief judge and two
associate judges for each district.
Orphan’s Court – Prior to 1778 probate matters were
recorded in the Prerogative Court.
The Orphans' Court was created in 1778 for all matters pertaining to probate.
Prerogative Court- The probate court of Maryland for the greater part of the
colonial period was called the Prerogative
Court. Many features of the court, notably the
terminology, were borrowed from the English
Prerogative Court. The origin of the court in Maryland can be traced
to the charter granted Lord Baltimore in 1632. In it, he was given complete
control over the colony, including control over matters of probate. In 1637,
Lord Baltimore appointed his brother, Leonard Calvert, lieutenant general
(governor) and placed him in charge of the colony. A council was named to
advise him with one member designated as secretary of the province. In 1638,
the secretary was appointed commissioner "in causes testamentary, to prove
the last wills and testaments of persons deceased." Yet, it was not until
1670 that the Prerogative Court
was formally established when Lord Baltimore gave the secretary full power
"to hear, sentence, and declare all matters touching wills,
administrations, and inventories." On May 19, 1671, the term "Prerogative Court"
was first used in the records of the court. On November 20, 1672 the office was
separated from that of the secretary and Philip Calvert received a commission
as chancellor and judge or commissary general for probate and wills. Under
Calvert (1673-1682) the court did not use the term "Prerogative Court." After Calvert
died in 1682, the term reappeared and was used continuously thereafter. The
basic organization of the Prerogative
Court and the procedures for handling probate
matters were laid out by the General Assembly in 1681. The court handled the
proving of wills, recording of administration of estate documents, and hearing
petitions. The care of orphans' estates became the responsibility of the county
courts. Because of travel difficulties in the colony, the secretary and later
the commissary general issued special commissions to persons to probate wills
or administer oaths to administrators or appraisers. These commissions were so
commonplace by 1692 that the commissary general was authorized to appoint a
deputy commissary in each county to prove wills, grant letters of
administration and letters testamentary, and administer oaths. A law passed in
1715 permitted the deputies to prove smaller accounts of estates. All matters
in dispute were referred to the commissary general. Estate papers handled by
the deputy commissaries were sent to the commissary general where they were
recorded. Some recording also took place at the local level. Probate records
maintained by the Prerogative
Court included administration accounts,
inventories, testamentary proceedings, and wills. The Maryland Constitution of
1776 provided for the appointment of a register of wills in each county and, by
implication, abolished the Prerogative
Court. The following year, the General Assembly
formally abolished the court and established an Orphan's Court and register of
wills in each county.
Provincial Court - The judicial system of colonial Maryland was modeled on
English precedents adapted to the provincial needs. Within a few years of the
settlement of Maryland
in 1634, a court had begun to hear cases in St. Mary’s City. Later, as separate
county courts came into existence, this court in the
provincial capital became known as the Provincial Court. The Maryland
Constitution of 1776 renamed the Provincial
Court as the General Court, which was divided
geographically into the General Courts of the Eastern and WesternShores.
Surety - Most states require the administrator to post
sufficient “surety”, often in the form of a bond, to cover the monetary value
of the estate in the event of any wrongdoing on the part of the administrator.
