Constitution:Article V of the Texas Constitution

The official title of Article V is "Judicial Department."

The Texas judiciary has two high courts: the Supreme Court handles civil law matters and the Court of Criminal Appeals handles criminal law matters. Oklahoma is the only other state that has two courts of last resort.

Another distinctive feature of the Texas judiciary is that most of the state's judges must run for office in contested elections. Efforts to change to another system (e.g., merit selection with retention elections) have always failed.

Unlike articles, sections do not have official titles. The section titles that appear in various publications have been assigned over the years by different publishers and are arguably protected by federal copyright law.

On Texas Legal Guide Online, each section has its own page:


 * Article V, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 1-a of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 2 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 3 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 3a of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 3-b of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 3-c of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 4 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 5 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 5a of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 5b of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 6 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 7a of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 8 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 10 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 11 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 12 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 13 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 14 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 15 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 16 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 16a of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 17 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 18 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 19 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 20 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 21 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 22 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 23 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 24 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 25 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 26 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 27 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 28 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 29 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 30 of the Texas Constitution
 * Article V, Section 31 of the Texas Constitution