Every state has at least one court of appeals (appellate court, or reviewing court), which may be an intermediate appellate court or the state’s highest court.
美国每一个州都至少有一个上诉的法院（上诉法院或者是重审法院），它可能是中级上诉法院或是州***别的法院。
About three-fourths of the states have intermediate appellate courts. Generally, courts of appeals do not conduct new trials, in which evidence is submitted to the court and witnesses are examined. Rather, an appellate court panel of three or more judges reviews the record of the case on appeal, which includes a transcript of the trial proceedings, and determines whether the trial court committed an error.
美国约3/4的州都有中级上诉法院。一般来说， 上诉法院不审理新的案件，新案件需要收集证据和询问证人。相反，由三名或三名以上法官组成的上诉法院合议庭将会审查上诉案件的记录，其中包括审判程序的文字记录，并确定初审法院是否作出有误裁决。
Usually, appellate courts do not look at the questions of fact (such as whether a party did, in fact, commit a certain action, such as burning a flag) but at questions of law (such as whether the act of flag-burning is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution). Only a judge, not a jury, can rule on questions of law.
通常，上诉法院不审查事实问题，（例如，一方当事人事实上是否做了某种行为，如烧国旗），但是可以审查法律问题（例如，烧国旗这种行为是否是美国联邦宪法**修正案中有关言论自由的一种表现形式）。只有法官，而非陪审团成员，才可以对法律问题做出裁决。
Appellate courts normally defer to a trial court’s findings on questions of fact because the trial court judge and jury were in a better position to evaluate testimony—by directly observing witnesses’ gestures, demeanor, and nonverbal behavior during the trial. At the appellate level, the judges review the written transcription of the trial, which does not include these nonverbal elements.
正常情况下，在事实问题的查明上，上诉法院要尊重初审法院的意见，因为初审法院的法官和陪审团在调查证据时处在一个更有力的位置上——他们可以在审理中直接观察证人的姿势、行为举止以及其他非语言等动作。在 上诉阶段，法官重新审理的是初审法院提供的书面纪录，这当然不包括那些非语言的要素。
An appellate court will challenge a trial court’s finding of fact only when the finding is clearly erroneous (that is, when it is contrary to the evidence presented at trial) or when there is no evidence to support the finding.
上诉法院只有当发现初审法院所查明的事实存在明显错误（也就是，审判中发现查出的“事实”与证据所证明的相反）或者根本就没有证据支持这些“事实”时，才能对该事实问题提出质疑。
If a jury concluded that a manufacturer’s product harmed the plaintiff but no evidence was submitted to the court to support that conclusion, the appellate court would hold that the trial court’s decision was erroneous.
如果陪审团得出结论是，一个商家的产品对原告造成了损害，但是法庭却不能提供支持这个结论的相应证据，那么上诉法院就将裁定初审法院的判决有误。
