Hamilton County, Ohio, Historic Courts
Circuit Court 1884 to 1912
One of the major defects in the District Court system of the time was the fact that the District Courts were made up of Court of Common Pleas judges, sitting with at least one Ohio Supreme Court Justice. This of course, often times, led to a Court of Common Pleas trial judge, reviewing in an appellate capacity their trial decision. Following the complete collapse of the District Courts, an amendment to the constitution in 1883 created the Circuit Courts. In trying to rectify all of the faults that were inherent in the now defunct District Courts, the new Circuit Courts were an attempt to be designed somewhat differently. Although this would at the time be Ohio’s second attempt in creating a specific and specialized court to adjudicate appeals from the inferior courts, it would be the state’s first attempt in creating an appellate court entirely independent of the trial court system as now, the new judges for the Circuit Courts sat exclusively on these courts and no others.
Circuit Courts were assigned the “same original jurisdiction with the Supreme Court, and such appellate jurisdiction as may be provided by law.” The composition of the courts and the number of circuits was left to the discretion of the legislature. In 1884, an act was passed dividing the state into seven circuits, provision was made for the election of three judges in each circuit. In addition to the above appellate jurisdiction, the court was authorized to issue writs of supersedeas in any case and all others as necessary.
Although the new Circuit Courts did improve upon the old District Court system, it was only a slight improvement. It was still a design that contributed to a backlog of appealed cases. One of the major defects that likely led to its failure is the fact that this new appellate court was only required to hold a minimum of two sessions each year, it was never a court that was in session all year round.
The report detailing the new structure of what would ultimately become the new Circuit Courts was submitted here in Cincinnati on December 27th 1882.
In 1887, it was realized that the Sixth Circuit, which is the Cleveland area was so large, that it necessitated the need for its own circuit and on March 21st 1887, they were given their own circuit, there now being eight circuits in total throughout the state.
An interesting case, titled the “Bense Law” came out of the Second Circuit in May 1911. This law required cities at the time to purify their water sources and also install sewage-disposal plants. This was instrumental at the time in decreasing cases of typhoid and other water-borne illnesses. Judge A.L. Allread, from the Second Circuit, ruled this law to be unconstitutional in the application of this law as it exempted all cities located on the Ohio River.
In 1912 the Circuit Courts were abolished. The new court that would take its place would be styled the Courts of Appeals.
The Circuit Court case numbers were assigned in sequential order, from # 1 on February 9th, 1885 to #5092 in December 1912.
If you don’t have a filing date for the case, you will need to look for the person in the indexes.
After finding your case number located within the name indexes, to obtain any additional documents that may exist as to this case, please send an email to Jason Alexander at JAlexand@cms.hamilton-co.org stating the case number, the person’s name, the docket book number, and page number, stating that it is from an “Circuit Court” case and that you are seeking any additional documents that we may have on file regarding this case.
Circuit Court Indexes: Surnames A to Z, within the surnames, first names beginning with A to Z;
Index 1: February 1885 to May 1888, cases # 1 to 1200
Surnames: A B C D E F G H I J K M N O P Q R S T U W XY Z Business A – Z
Sources: Inventory of the County Archives of Ohio 31 Hamilton County (Cincinnati), WPA, CD 3447.A1 H55 1937 no.31