14.1: The American Federal Judiciary

Article III of the Constitution establishes the judicial branch of America’s national government and tasks it with interpreting both the Constitution and the laws made by Congress. The Founders believed a federal judiciary was necessary based on their experience under the Articles of Confederation. Without a court system capable of adjudicating interstate disputes, competing territorial claims and conflicting economic policies threatened to fracture the Union. State courts could not be relied upon to impartially resolve issues involving their own states, but a federal court could settle them without being obviously biased toward one side or the other.

Article III only names one federal court, the Supreme Court, but it bestows upon Congress the power to “ordain and establish” inferior courts as it sees fit. Using this power, Congress has established two other general categories of federal courts. Directly beneath the Supreme Court are 13 appellate courts. Each appellate court (also called a circuit court or court of appeals) presides over a “circuit” of lower courts. 11 of these 13 circuits, numbered First through Eleventh, cover the various states and territories of the United States (as depicted in Figure 14.1 below). The remaining circuits are the District of Columbia Circuit (which handles many issues involving Congress and the executive branch) and the Federal Circuit (which deals with topics such as patent and trademark law).

Figure 14.1: U.S. states and territories by appellate court jurisdiction (Not pictured: Federal Circuit).

Beneath the appellate courts are 94 district courts. Each district court covers all or part of a state or territory, with larger and more populous states being split into multiple districts. For example, Pennsylvania is divided into a Western District, a Middle District, and an Eastern District, whereas Oregon is encompassed by a single district.

Most federal cases begin at the district court level. The losing side in a district court case can appeal to an appellate court if it is dissatisfied with the outcome. The losing side in an appellate court case can likewise appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is the “court of last resort,” meaning that there is no appeal opportunity for the losing side in a Supreme Court case, although the Supreme Court can overturn its own prior decisions in subsequent cases.