ISSUES

Issues are questions of law addressed to the court

The Issue frames the legal question which the appellate court must answer. It is what the attorneys are arguing about in the written briefs they submit and in their oral arguments before the court. The issues nearly always revolve around something that is alleged to have gone wrong at trial, usually the trial court judge's rulings or interpretation of the law. Note: It is customary to state the issue beginning with "whether." This forces us to frame the issue in a question form.