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Federal jurisdiction refers to the legal scope of the government's powers in the United States of America.. The United States is a federal republic, governed by the U.S. Constitution, containing fifty states and a federal district which elect the President and Vice President, and having other territories and possessions in its national jurisdiction.
All federal courts can be readily identified by the words "United States" (abbreviated to "U.S.") in their official names; no state court may include this designation as part of its name. [3] The federal courts are generally divided between trial courts, which hear cases in the first instance, and appellate courts, which review contested ...
Unlike some state courts, the power of federal courts to hear cases and controversies is strictly limited. Federal courts may not decide every case that happens to come before them. In order for a district court to entertain a lawsuit, Congress must first grant the court subject matter jurisdiction over the type of dispute in question.
U.S. Court of Appeals and District Court map. In the U.S. federal judicial system, the United States is divided into 94 judicial districts. Each state has at least one judicial district, as do the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Each judicial district contains a United States district court with a bankruptcy court under its
The Supreme Court is the only federal court that is explicitly established by the Constitution. During the Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made for the Supreme Court to be the only federal court, having both original jurisdiction and appellate jurisdiction. This proposal was rejected in favor of the provision that exists today.
In its first decision, the Federal Circuit incorporated as binding precedent the decisions of its predecessor courts, the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals and the appellate division of the United States Court of Claims. [8] Because the Court is one of national jurisdiction, panels from the court may sit anywhere in the country.
Article III courts (also called Article III tribunals) are the U.S. Supreme Court and the inferior courts of the United States established by Congress, which currently are the 13 United States courts of appeals, the 91 United States district courts (including the districts of D.C. and Puerto Rico, but excluding the territorial district courts of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the ...
The Supreme Court is the only federal court that has jurisdiction over direct appeals from state court decisions, although there are several devices that permit so-called "collateral review" of state cases. This "collateral review" often only applies to individuals on death row and not through the regular judicial system. [192]