§ 200.21 Procedure in local criminal courts; local court rules

Local criminal courts follow the state's Criminal Procedure Law as their main guide for handling cases. On top of that, each local court can adopt its own rules to cover specific details of how things run in that particular court.

These local rules cannot be created however a judge or court wants. They have to follow the process set out in Part 9 of the Rules of the Chief Judge. This keeps local courts from making up their own procedures without any oversight, while still giving them some flexibility to address local needs.

For someone with a case in a local criminal court, this means two sets of rules may apply. The state law sets the basic framework for how criminal cases move forward, and local rules may add more specific requirements. If you want to know exactly how a particular court operates, you may need to check both the state law and that court's own local rules.