The United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois (in
case citation
Case citation is a system used by legal professionals to identify past court case decisions, either in series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a neutral style that identifies a decision regardless of where it is reported. Case c ...
s, S.D. Ill.) is a
federal district court
The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...
covering approximately the southern third of the state of Illinois.
Appeals from the Southern District of Illinois are taken to the
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (in case citations, 7th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts:
* Central District of Illinois
* Northern District of I ...
(except for
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
claims and claims against the U.S. government under the
Tucker Act
The Tucker Act (March 3, 1887, ch. 359, , ) is a federal statute of the United States by which the United States government has waived its sovereign immunity with respect to certain lawsuits.
The Tucker Act may be divided into the "Big" Tucker ...
, which are appealed to the
Federal Circuit).
It has three courthouses, at
Benton,
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo met ...
, and
East St. Louis. At present, four judges are assigned to this district.
History
The
United States District Court for the District of Illinois was established by a statute passed by the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washi ...
on March 3, 1819, .
[Asbury Dickens, ''A Synoptical Index to the Laws and Treaties of the United States of America'' (1852), p. 393.][U.S. District Courts of Illinois, Legislative history]
''Federal Judicial Center
The Federal Judicial Center is the education and research agency of the United States federal courts. It was established by in 1967, at the recommendation of the Judicial Conference of the United States.
According to , the main areas of resp ...
''. The act established a single office for a judge to preside over the court. Initially, the court was not within any existing judicial circuit, so the district court exercised the jurisdiction of both a
district court and a
circuit court, with appeals and
writs of error
In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...
taken directly to the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...
. In 1837, Congress placed the District of Illinois within the newly created
Seventh Circuit, and the district court resumed its normal jurisdiction, .
[
The Southern District itself was created by a statute passed on February 13, 1855, , which subdivided the District of Illinois into the Northern and the Southern Districts.][ The boundaries of the District and the seats of the courts were set forth in the statute:
The district has since been re-organized several times. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Illinois was created on March 3, 1905 by ,][ by splitting counties out of the Northern and Southern Districts. It was later eliminated in a reorganization on October 2, 1978 which replaced it with a Central District, ,][ formed primarily from parts of the Southern District, and returning some counties to the Northern District.
]
Jurisdiction
The jurisdiction of the Southern District of Illinois comprises the following counties: Alexander
Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here are Aleksandar, A ...
, Bond, Calhoun, Clark
Clark is an English language surname, ultimately derived from the Latin with historical links to England, Scotland, and Ireland ''clericus'' meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone who was educated ...
, Clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay parti ...
, Clinton, Crawford, Cumberland
Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...
, Edwards, Effingham, Fayette, Franklin, Gallatin, Hamilton Hamilton may refer to:
People
* Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname
** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland
** Lord Hamilto ...
, Hardin, Jackson
Jackson may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name
Places
Australia
* Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region
* Jackson North, ...
, Jasper
Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases,Kostov, R. I. 2010. Review on the mineralogical systematics of jasper and related rocks. – Archaeometry Workshop, 7, 3, 209-213PDF/ref> ...
, Jefferson, Jersey
Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label=Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west France. It is the la ...
, Johnson
Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...
, Lawrence, Madison, Marion, Massac, Monroe, Perry
Perry, also known as pear cider, is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented pears, traditionally the perry pear. It has been common for centuries in England, particularly in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. It is also mad ...
, Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
, Pulaski, Randolph, Richland, Saline, St. Clair, Union, Wabash, Washington, Wayne, White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
, and Williamson. The district was created in 1979. It has jurisdiction over the eastern suburbs of St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which ...
and the city of Carbondale.
The United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Illinois represents the United States in civil and criminal litigation in the court. The current United States Attorney is Steven D. Weinhoeft.
Current judges
:
Former judges
Chief judges
Succession of seats
United States Attorneys for the Southern District of Illinois
The United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Illinois is the federal prosecuting office for cases arising in 38 counties in Southern Illinois. The Office is headquartered in Fairview Heights and also has branch offices in Benton and East St. Louis.
* James R. Burgess* (April 1979 – January 1982)
* Frederick J. Hess* (January 1982 – June 1993)
* Clifford J. Proud (June 1993 – November 1993)
* W. Charles Grace* (December 20, 1993 – January 30, 2002)
* Robert J. Cleary (January 30, 2002 – May 29, 2002)
* Laura J. Jones (May 30, 2002 – August 6, 2002)
* Miriam F. Miquelon* (August 7, 2002 – September 1, 2003)
* Richard E. Byrne (September 2, 2003 – November 15, 2003)
* Ronald J. Tenpas* (November 16, 2003 – November 20, 2005)
* Edward E. McNally (November 21, 2005 – March 11, 2006)
* Randy G. Massey (March 12, 2006 – November. 4, 2007)
* Courtney Cox (November 5, 2007 – August 26, 2010)
* Stephen R. Wigginton* (August 27, 2010 – December 11, 2015)
* James L. Porter (December 12, 2015 – July 7, 2016)
* Donald S. Boyce (July 8, 2016 – July 22, 2018)
* Steven D. Weinhoeft (July 23, 2018 – June 21, 2022)
* Rachelle Aud Crowe* (June 21, 2022 – present)
(*) Presidential appointment
See also
* Courts of Illinois
* List of current United States district judges
The following is a list of all current judges of the United States district and territorial courts. The list includes both "active" and "senior" judges, both of whom hear and decide cases. There are 89 districts in the 50 states, with a total ...
* List of United States federal courthouses in Illinois
References
External links
United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois Official Website
United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois
Illinois, Southern District
Illinois law
Metro East
Carbondale, Illinois
1855 establishments in Illinois
East St. Louis, Illinois
Courthouses in Illinois
Courts and tribunals established in 1855