[czinck]

Because it's confusing: the NY Supreme Court is just a trial court, it's not at all like the US Supreme Court. The top appellate court is called the Court of Appeals. It's called "supreme" because it has general jurisdiction, as opposed to things like traffic court.

[nwiswell]

That is bizarre. Most states call them "superior" courts. Supreme implies, well, the superlative authority, and it is definitely not.

[jrochkind1]

Apparently Maryland also names it's courts confusingly, which I only know because on the ballot in a couple weeks is a constitutional amendment to change it to be what you expect.

(and googling it just now to give you details, I arrived at Ballotpedia which said Maryland and New York are the only two states that don't call their top court "supreme". Maryland for not much longer probably, as ammendments on the ballot always seem to pass here. But even Maryland doesn't call a different court supreme!).

> Question 1 would rename the Maryland Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court of Maryland and the Maryland Court of Special Appeals to the Appellate Court of Maryland. It would change the name of a Judge of the Court of Appeals to be a Justice of the Supreme Court of Maryland and the name of the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Maryland. It would also change the gendered language to gender-neutral in the articles of the Maryland Constitution that would be amended.[2]

> Maryland and New York are the only states that do not refer to their state's top court as the supreme court

—https://ballotpedia.org/Maryland_Question_1,_Renaming_of_the...

(OK, so currently in Maryland you start your appeal at the "court of special appeals", and if you don't like the finding you can appeal further to the "court of appeals"? The Court of Appeals is a higher court than the Court of Special Appeals? I'd say that's almost as confusing as New York, although maybe not quite).

[nwiswell]

I can think of another context where "special" is a pejorative... :)

[phpisthebest]

It is confusing because NY likes to be confusing.

Almost every other state the State Supreme Court, is the top court of the state, just like the federal court

And the Court of Appeals is lower than the State Supreme Court.

Why NY needs to needless complicate everything is beyond me

[jrockway]

I guess it's because it's old. From the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Supreme_Court):

> The New York Supreme Court is the oldest Supreme Court with general original jurisdiction. It was established as the Supreme Court of Judicature by the Province of New York on May 6, 1691. That court was continued by the State of New York after independence was declared in 1776. It became the New York Supreme Court under the New York Constitutional Convention of 1846.

The name predates the US Supreme Court (in fact, predates the US itself), and many other state courts. Basically, someone changed the naming convention out from under them.

[midoridensha]

There's nothing stopping the state from renaming the courts now to conform with established convention in the rest of the nation, in order to reduce confusion.

[nobody9999]

>There's nothing stopping the state from renaming the courts now to conform with established convention in the rest of the nation, in order to reduce confusion.

I imagine that the entire New York Legislature are hanging their heads in shame for confusing a few dozen folks on HN who don't even live in the state.

I further imagine that it will immediately become important for the governor to call an emergency session of the Legislature (which normally meets from January to June) to change the name of the court after they read your comment.

[phpisthebest]

I suspect the current Governor of NY would rather just abolish all the courts since she clearly does not believe in arresting or prosecuting any crime

[xeromal]

Thanks for digging this up. How cool!

[nwiswell]

> It became the New York Supreme Court under the New York Constitutional Convention of 1846.

Sounds like they blew their chance to name it properly. Oh well.

[phpisthebest]

it being old does not explain why it could not have been made into being the Top court.