Talk:United States district court

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Changed the Tax Court sentence. Tax Court is where you petition for a re-determination of an assessment for deficiency or the like. This allows you to contest the assessment of tax due without paying the tax. In order to contest an assessment in District Court, you must first pay the tax: in essence the civil action in District Court is a suit for a refund.

Right? There must be a few tax lawyers out there who have read this article. Ellsworth 14:27, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Political appointments

>the President appoints all judges, so they virtually always belong to the same political party as the President. Judges are appointed for life<

That's a nonsensical statement, 'cos it only can apply to judges appointed during the presidency. I tried to change it, but my English may not be good enough, so please, feel free to improve. --Wpopp 15:35, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)

[edit] Move

"United States District Court" is a proper noun; it is the title of the courts. Therefore, the page title should be capitalized. --Russ Blau (talk) 21:35, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Your premise is flawed. While, for example, the "United States District Court for the District of Columbia" is a proper noun, "United States district court" is a common noun because it does not denote a unique entity. This is similar to how we might write, "Judge Roberts is a nominee to the Supreme Court," and also write, "John Roberts is a judge."
— DLJessup (talk) 21:46, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

DLJessup is correct - this is how I have observed the courts themselves to use the terminology. -- BD2412 talk 22:12, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Then we should rename the United States Court of Appeals article United States court of appeals.
Incidentally, see how capitalization is used in 28 U.S.C. § 43 and 28 U.S.C. § 132. --Russ Blau (talk) 22:19, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed that we should rename the United States Court of Appeals article United States court of appeals. I have opened said topic in Talk:United States Court of Appeals.

— DLJessup (talk) 22:40, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm reading a case right now where the U.S. Supreme Court does exactly that - uses caps when referring to specific courts "The District Court denied the petitioner's motion to dismiss"; "We granted certiorari to resolve a disagreement among the Courts of Appeals." But later in the same opinion, notes that the statute "provides for appeal to the courts of appeals" and that "we have declined to hold the collateral order doctrine applicable where a district court has denied a claim, not that the defendant has a right not to be sued at all, but that the suit against the defendant is not properly before the particular court because it lacks jurisdiction." -- BD2412 talk 04:39, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I concur with BD2412's and DLJessup's analysis. --Coolcaesar 12:06, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I've withdrawn the move request. --Russ Blau (talk) 13:36, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Territorial courts

Jengod added the following sentence: "There were also a number of pre-statehood territorial district courts." Now then, the final sentence of the introduction reads:

Insular areas other than Puerto Rico (and Palmyra Island, which is included in the District of Hawaii) are not federal judicial districts and therefore do not have a United States District Court, although several of these areas have a court called the "district court" that operates similarly to a United States District Court.

Moreover, the Federal Judicial Center states:

[2 Stat. 283] organized the Territory of Orleans as a judicial district and authorized one judgeship for the U.S. district court. This was the only time Congress provided a territory with a district court equal in its authority and jurisdiction to the district courts in the states. [1]

Thus, all of the pre-statehood territorial district courts except the U.S. District Court for the District of Orleans are Article I territorial courts and therefore do not fall into the definition of U.S. district court.

— DLJessup (talk) 14:46, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Someone replaced words in here a while ago... I found a random "RUMP" but I think I saw more. Someone check my fix.

The United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico is a full Article III United States District Court and has been since 1966. Note that it took a special Act of Congress to confer this status. Newyorkbrad 19:01, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Number of courts

"In 2006, there were 268 authorized district court judgeships." Where does this number come from? If you do a search on fjc.gov, you get that there are 641 current active district judges (and about 400 more senior district judges). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.98.225.73 (talk) 03:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)