Abstract: Among legal historians there are three principal viewpoints regarding the administrative divisions of the local judiciary in the Qing Dynasty. Although scholars have reached different conclusions, they agree on the overall structure. There were four levels of judicial review in the Qing dynasty through an examination of cases that were reversed drawn from the Board of Punishment Imperial Registers of overturned cases. But the administrative divisions of the local judiciary were not static or absolute. Taking a macroscopic view of judicial administration primarily relying on cases from Shanxi, Hupei provinces, this article examines the changing judicial process for criminal cases in directly administered prefectures, specifically the transmission of cases by the circuit-level official. In this way, the author generalizes comprehensively both the changing and stable characteristics of local judicial administration and the background of local administrative practice. These two different aspects of judicial administration, flexibility and stability, both reflect the importance of local officials, such as Governors, Surveillance Commissioners, Provincial Administration Commissioners, and Circuit Intendants. Moreover, central government and local officials held different views due to their different positions in handling of judicial affairs.