Talk:United States district court

Untitled

Changed the Tax Court sentence. Tax Court is where you petition for a re-determination of an assessment for deficiency or the like. This allows you to contest the assessment of tax due without paying the tax. In order to contest an assessment in District Court, you must first pay the tax: in essence the civil action in District Court is a suit for a refund.

Right? There must be a few tax lawyers out there who have read this article. Ellsworth 14:27, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Political appointments

>the President appoints all judges, so they virtually always belong to the same political party as the President. Judges are appointed for life<

That's a nonsensical statement, 'cos it only can apply to judges appointed during the presidency. I tried to change it, but my English may not be good enough, so please, feel free to improve. --Wpopp 15:35, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)

Move

"United States District Court" is a proper noun; it is the title of the courts. Therefore, the page title should be capitalized. --Russ Blau (talk) 21:35, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Your premise is flawed. While, for example, the "United States District Court for the District of Columbia" is a proper noun, "United States district court" is a common noun because it does not denote a unique entity. This is similar to how we might write, "Judge Roberts is a nominee to the Supreme Court," and also write, "John Roberts is a judge."

— DLJessup (talk) 21:46, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

DLJessup is correct - this is how I have observed the courts themselves to use the terminology. -- BD2412 ^talk 22:12, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Then we should rename the United States Court of Appeals article United States court of appeals.

Incidentally, see how capitalization is used in 28 U.S.C. § 43 and 28 U.S.C. § 132. --Russ Blau (talk) 22:19, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed that we should rename the United States Court of Appeals article United States court of appeals. I have opened said topic in Talk:United States Court of Appeals.

— DLJessup (talk) 22:40, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm reading a case right now where the U.S. Supreme Court does exactly that - uses caps when referring to specific courts "The District Court denied the petitioner's motion to dismiss"; "We granted certiorari to resolve a disagreement among the Courts of Appeals." But later in the same opinion, notes that the statute "provides for appeal to the courts of appeals" and that "we have declined to hold the collateral order doctrine applicable where a district court has denied a claim, not that the defendant has a right not to be sued at all, but that the suit against the defendant is not properly before the particular court because it lacks jurisdiction." -- BD2412 ^talk 04:39, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I concur with BD2412's and DLJessup's analysis. --Coolcaesar 12:06, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I've withdrawn the move request. --Russ Blau (talk) 13:36, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Territorial courts

Jengod added the following sentence: "There were also a number of pre-statehood territorial district courts." Now then, the final sentence of the introduction reads:

Insular areas other than Puerto Rico (and Palmyra Island, which is included in the District of Hawaii) are not federal judicial districts and therefore do not have a United States District Court, although several of these areas have a court called the "district court" that operates similarly to a United States District Court.

Moreover, the Federal Judicial Center states:

[2 Stat. 283] organized the Territory of Orleans as a judicial district and authorized one judgeship for the U.S. district court. This was the only time Congress provided a territory with a district court equal in its authority and jurisdiction to the district courts in the states. [1]

Thus, all of the pre-statehood territorial district courts except the U.S. District Court for the District of Orleans are Article I territorial courts and therefore do not fall into the definition of U.S. district court.

— DLJessup (talk) 14:46, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Someone replaced words in here a while ago... I found a random "RUMP" but I think I saw more. Someone check my fix.

The United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico is a full Article III United States District Court and has been since 1966. Note that it took a special Act of Congress to confer this status. Newyorkbrad 19:01, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

In 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed Public Law 89-571, 80 Stat. 764, which transformed the Article IV federal district court in Puerto Rico to an Article III Court. This Act of Congress was not conducted pursuant to Article IV of the Constitution, the Territorial Clause, but rather under Article III. This marks the first and only occasion in United States history in which Congress establishes an Article III Court in a territory other than the District of Columbia.

The reason for the enactment of this Law: There does not appear any reason why the U.S. District Judges for the District of Puerto Rico should not be placed in a position of parity as to tenure with all other Federal Judges throughout our judicial system. Moreover, federal litigants in Puerto Rico should not be denied the benefit of judges made independent by life tenure from the pressures of those who might influence his chances of reappointment, which benefits the Constitution guarantees to the litigants in all other Federal Courts. These judges in Puerto Rico have and will have the exacting same heavy responsibilities as all other Federal district judges and, therefore, they should have the same independence, security, and retirement benefits to which all other Federal district judges are entitled.

See 1966 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2786-90 (emphasis added); see also Examining Bd. of Engineers Architects and Surveyors v. Flores de Otero, 426 U.S. at 595 n.26 (“The reason given for this [law] was that the Federal District Court in Puerto Rico ‘is in its jurisdiction, powers, and responsibilities the same as the U.S. district courts in the (several) states’.”). This important change in the federal judicialstructure of the island was implemented not as a request of the Commonwealth government, but rather at the repeated request of the Judicial Conference of the United States. See Senate Report No. 1504, 1966 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2786-90.

CONSEJO DE SALUD PLAYA DE PONCE v JOHNNY RULLAN, SECRETARY OF HEALTH OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO (PDF), The United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, retrieved 2009-12-31 (Seablade (talk) 19:36, 6 June 2010 (UTC))

The above information (with more careful quotation and citation) would be more useful in United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. It would be undue emphasis to provide this much detail about the status of a single district in this article. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:19, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Number of courts

"In 2006, there were 268 authorized district court judgeships." Where does this number come from? If you do a search on fjc.gov, you get that there are 641 current active district judges (and about 400 more senior district judges). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.98.225.73 (talk) 03:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

American Samoa

The introduction states:

"There is at least one judicial district for each state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. District courts in three insular areas—the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands—exercise the same jurisdiction as U.S. district courts."

Where does this leave American Samoa? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.164.205.147 (talk) 07:08, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Without a United States district court. I think there have been attempts in Congress to create one, but nothing passsed. --Bbb23 (talk) 23:59, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

how many judges are in the district court, courts of appeals, supreme court, court of international trade, and court of appeals for the federal circuit? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.69.115.55 (talk) 13:46, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Correct number of judges

The article currently states that the largest districts by number of judgeships are S.D.N.Y. with 28 and C.D. Cal. with 27. There's even a link to the United States Code that lays out how many judgeships each district has authorized. However, the article on the United States District Court for the Central District of California states that that court has 28 authorized judgeships, not 27. It also lists the 26 active judges and the details of two vacancies. There must be a mistake somewhere but I can't work out where. Does C.D. Cal. have 27 authorized judgeships or 28? --Lincolnite (talk) 03:16, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

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