The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (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, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. courts of appeals, and it covers only the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It meets at the

E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse The E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse is a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. that is home to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Since 2009, it has ...

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

. The D.C. Circuit is often considered to be second only to the

U.S. 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 court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

in status and prestige, and it is sometimes unofficially termed "the second highest court in the land". Because its jurisdiction covers the District of Columbia, it tends to be the main federal appellate court for issues of U.S.

administrative law Administrative law is a division of law governing the activities of government agency, executive branch agencies of government. Administrative law includes executive branch rulemaking (executive branch rules are generally referred to as "regul ...

and

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in ...

. Four of the nine current Supreme Court justices were previously judges on the D.C. Circuit: Chief Justice

John Roberts John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American jurist serving since 2005 as the 17th chief justice of the United States. He has been described as having a Moderate conservatism, moderate conservative judicial philosophy, thoug ...

and associate justices

Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served since 1991 as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. President George H. W. Bush nominated him to succeed Thurgood Marshall. Afte ...

Brett Kavanaugh Brett Michael Kavanaugh (; born February 12, 1965) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on July 9, 2018, and has served since Oct ...

, and

Ketanji Brown Jackson Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson (née Brown; ; born September 14, 1970) is an American lawyer and jurist who is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Jackson Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court nomination, was nominated ...

. Past justices

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; Bader; March 15, 1933 – September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until Death and state funeral of Ruth Bader ...

Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectual an ...

Warren E. Burger Warren Earl Burger (September 17, 1907 – June 25, 1995) was an American attorney who served as the 15th chief justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Burger graduated from the William Mitchell College o ...

Fred M. Vinson Frederick Moore Vinson (January 22, 1890 – September 8, 1953) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 13th chief justice of the United States from 1946 until his death in 1953. Vinson was one of the few Americans to have ser ...

, and

Wiley Blount Rutledge Wiley Blount Rutledge Jr. (July 20, 1894 – September 10, 1949) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1943 to 1949. The ninth and final justice appointed by President Franklin ...

also served on the D.C. Circuit before their appointments to the Supreme Court. Because the D.C. Circuit does not represent any state, confirmation of nominees can be procedurally and practically easier than for nominees to the Courts of Appeals for the other geographical districts, as home-state senators have historically been able to hold up confirmation through the

blue slip A blue slip or blue-slipping is one of two different legislative procedures in the United States Congress. * Blue slip (U.S. Senate) is the slip on which the senators from the state of residence of a federal judicial nominee gives an opinion on the ...

process.

Current composition of the court

List of former judges

Chiefs

When Congress established this court in 1893 as the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, it had a chief justice, and the other judges were called associate justices, which was similar to the structure of the Supreme Court. The chief justiceship was a separate seat: the president would appoint the chief justice, and that person would stay chief justice until he left the court. On June 25, 1948, 62 ''Stat.'' 869 and 62 ''Stat.'' 985 became law. These acts made the chief justice a chief judge. In 1954, another law, 68 ''Stat.'' 1245, clarified what was implicit in those laws: that the chief judgeship was not a mere renaming of the position but a change in its status that made it the same as the chief judge of other inferior courts.

Succession of seats

The court has eleven seats for active judges after the elimination of Seat 8 under the Court Security Improvement Act of 2007. The seat that was originally the chief justiceship is numbered as Seat 1; the other seats are numbered in order of their creation. If seats were established simultaneously, they are numbered in the order in which they were filled. Judges who retire into senior status remain on the bench but leave their seat vacant. That seat is filled by the next circuit judge appointed by the

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

Notes

References

* ** Source for the duty station for Judge Williams * ** Source for the duty station for Judges Silberman and Buckley ** Data is current to 2002 * ** Source for the state, lifetime, term of active judgeship, term of chief judgeship, term of senior judgeship, appointer, termination reason, and seat information

External links

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

Recent opinions from FindLaw

What Makes the DC Circuit so Different? A Historical View - Article by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.
* {{DEFAULTSORT:United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Government in Washington, D.C. 1893 establishments in Washington, D.C. Courts and tribunals established in 1893