The
United States courts of appeals (or
circuit courts) are the intermediate
appellate court of the
United States federal court
system. A court of appeals decides appeals from the
district court within its
federal judicial
circuit, and in some instances from other designated federal
courts and
administrative
agencies.
There
currently are thirteen United States courts of appeals, although
there are other tribunals (such as the Court of Appeals for the Armed
Forces
, which hears appeals in court-martial cases, and the United States
Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, which reviews final
decisions by the Board of Veterans' Appeals in the Department of Veterans Affairs
) that have “Court of Appeals” in their
titles. The eleven “numbered” circuits and the
D.C.
Circuit are geographically defined. The thirteenth court of
appeals is the
United
States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has
nationwide jurisdiction over certain appeals based on their subject
matter. All of the courts of appeals also hear appeals from some
administrative agency decisions and rulemaking, with by far the
largest share of these cases heard by the D.C. Circuit. The Federal
Circuit hears appeals from specialized trial courts, primarily the
United States
Court of International Trade and the
United States Court of
Federal Claims, as well as appeals from the district courts in
patent cases and certain other specialized
matters.
Decisions of the United States courts of appeals have been
published by the private company
West
Publishing in the
Federal
Reporter series since the courts were established. Only
decisions that the courts designate for publication are included.
The "unpublished" opinions (of all but the Fifth and Eleventh
Circuits) are published separately in West's
Federal Appendix, and they are also
available in on-line databases like
Lexis or
Westlaw. More recently, court decisions are
also available electronically on the official
Internet websites of the courts themselves.
However, there are also a few federal court decisions that are
classified for national security reasons.
The circuit with the smallest number of appellate judges is the
First
Circuit, and the one with the largest number of appellate
judges is the geographically-large and populous
Ninth
Circuit in the Far West. The number of judges that the
U.S. Congress has
authorized for each circuit is set forth by law in .
Although the courts of appeals are frequently referred to as
"circuit courts," they should not be confused with the former
United States circuit
courts, which were active from 1789 to 1911, during the time
when long-distance transportation was much less available, and
which were primarily first-level federal
trial courts that moved slowly from place to
place in "circuits" in order to serve the dispersed population in
towns and the smaller cities that existed then.
Procedure
Trials, at which witnesses and other evidence
are presented to a jury or judge in order to determine the truth or
facts regarding a particular case, are held only in courts with
original jurisdiction, i.e.,
courts in which a
lawsuit is originally (and
properly) filed and which have the power to accept evidence from
witnesses and make factual and legal determinations regarding the
evidence presented. Such trial courts also determine what, if any,
punishment (in criminal cases), or what damages (in civil cases)
should be awarded. Because the courts of appeals possess only
appellate jurisdiction, they do not hold trials. Instead, appeals
courts review decisions of trial courts for errors of law.
Accordingly, an appeals court considers only the record (that is,
the papers the parties filed and the transcripts and any exhibits
from any trial) from the trial court, and the legal arguments of
the parties. These arguments, which are presented in written form,
and can range in length from dozens to hundreds of pages, are
paradoxically known as "
briefs."
Sometimes lawyers are permitted to add to their written briefs with
oral arguments before the appeals
judges. At such hearings, only the parties' lawyers speak to the
court.
The rules that govern the procedure in the courts of appeals are
the
Federal Rules
of Appellate Procedure. In a court of appeals, an appeal is
almost always heard by a "panel" of three judges who are randomly
selected from the available judges (including senior judges and
judges temporarily assigned to the circuit). Some cases, however,
receive an
en banc hearing. Except
in the Ninth Circuit Courts, the
en banc court consists of
all of the circuit judges who are on active status, but it does not
include the senior or assigned judges (except that under some
circumstances, a senior judge may participate in an en banc hearing
when he or she participated at an earlier stage of the same
case).
Many
decades ago, certain classes of federal court cases held the right
of an automatic appeal to the Supreme Court of
the United States
. That is, one of the parties in the case
could appeal a decision of a court of appeals to the Supreme Court,
and it had to accept the case. The right of automatic appeal for
most types of decisions of a court of appeals was ended by an Act
of Congress, the
Judiciary Act of
1925. This law was urged by
Chief
Justice William Howard Taft,
and it also reorganized many other things in the federal court
system.
The current procedure is that a party in a case may apply to the
Supreme Court to review a ruling of the circuit court. This is
called petitioning for a
writ of
certiorari, and the Supreme Court may choose, in its sole
discretion, to review any lower court ruling. In extremely rare
cases, the Supreme Court may grant the writ of certiorari before
the judgment is rendered by the court of appeals, thereby reviewing
the lower court's ruling directly. For example, this procedure was
used in the
Watergate
scandal-related case,
United States v. Nixon, , and in the 2005
decision involving the
Federal Sentencing Guidelines,
United States v.
Booker, .
A court of appeals may also pose questions to the Supreme Court for
a ruling in the midst of reviewing a case. This procedure was
formerly used somewhat commonly, but now it is quite rare. The
Second Circuit, sitting
en banc, attempted to use this
procedure in the case
United States v. Penaranda,
as a result of the Supreme Court's decision in
Blakely v. Washington. , but the Supreme
Court dismissed the question after resolving the same issue in
another case, which had come before the Court through the standard
procedure. The last instance of the Supreme Court accepting a set
of questions and answering them was in a case in 1982.
A court of appeals may convene a
Bankruptcy Appellate Panel to
hear appeals in
bankruptcy cases directly
from the
bankruptcy
court of its circuit. , only the
First,
Sixth,
Eighth,
Ninth,
and
Tenth
Circuits have established a Bankruptcy Appellate Panel. Those
circuits that do not have a Bankruptcy Appellate Panel have their
bankruptcy appeals heard directly by the court of appeals.
Court of appeals decisions, unlike those of the lower federal
courts, establish binding
precedents.
Other federal courts in that circuit must, from that point forward,
follow the appeals court's guidance in similar cases, regardless of
whether the trial judge thinks that the case should be decided
differently.
Federal and state laws can and do change from time-to-time,
depending on the actions of Congress and the state legislatures.
Therefore the law that exists at the time of the appeal might be
different from the law that existed at the time of the events that
are in controversy under civil or criminal law in the case at hand.
A court of appeals applies the law as it exists at the time of the
appeal, otherwise it would be handing down decisions that would be
instantly obsolete, and this would be a waste of time and
resources, since such decisions could not be cited as precedent.
"[A]court is to apply the law in effect at the time it renders its
decision, unless doing so would result in manifest injustice, or
there is statutory direction or some legislative history to the
contrary."
Bradley v. Richmond Sch. Bd.,
416 U.S. 696, 711-12 (1974).
However, the above rule cannot apply in criminal cases if the
effect of applying the newer law would be to create an
ex post facto law to the
detriment of the defendant.
Attorneys
In order to serve as counsel in a case appealed to a circuit court
the attorney must be admitted to the bar of that circuit.
Admission to the
bar of a circuit court is granted as a matter of course to any
attorney who is admitted to practice law in any state of the United
States. The attorney submits an application, pays a fee, and takes
the oath of admission. Local practice varies as to whether the oath
is given in writing or in open court before a judge of the circuit,
and most courts of appeals allow the applicant attorney to choose
which method he or she prefers.
Nomenclature
When the courts of appeals were created in 1891, one was created
for each of the nine circuits then existing, and each court was
named the "United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the _____
Circuit." When a court of appeals was created for the District of
Columbia in 1893, it was named the "Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia," and it was renamed to the "United States
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia" in 1934. In 1948,
Congress renamed all of the courts of appeals then existing to
their current formal names: the court of appeals for each numbered
circuit was named the "United States Court of Appeals for the _____
Circuit," and the "United States Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia" became the “United States Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit." The Tenth Circuit was created in
1929 by subdividing the existing Eighth Circuit, and the Eleventh
Circuit was created in 1981 by subdividing the existing Fifth
Circuit. The Federal Circuit was created in 1982 by the merger of
the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals and the
appellate division of the United States Court of Claims.
Circuit composition
Circuit population
Based on
2008 U.S. census estimates, the population residing in
each circuit is as follows.
| Circuit |
Authorized Judges |
Population |
Percentage of US Pop. |
| D.C. Circuit |
11 |
591,833 |
0.19
|
| 1st circuit |
6 |
14,135,057 |
4.58
|
| 2nd Circuit |
13 |
23,612,819 |
7.66
|
| 3rd Circuit |
14 |
22,112,480 |
7.17
|
| 4th Circuit |
15 |
28,919,368 |
9.38
|
| 5th Circuit |
17 |
31,676,388 |
10.27
|
| 6th Circuit |
16 |
31,973,465 |
10.37
|
| 7th Circuit |
11 |
24,906,322 |
8.08
|
| 8th Circuit |
11 |
20,219,050 |
6.56
|
| 9th Circuit |
29 |
60,920,046 |
19.75
|
| 10th Circuit |
12 |
16,637,399 |
5.40
|
| 11th Circuit |
12 |
32,675,984 |
10.60
|
See also
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