Ballotpedia:Federal Judiciary - Archived

This project has been archived. For ongoing projects on Ballotpedia, see our scope.

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List of courts

This project is from April 2009 and all five stages are considered complete. Individual project pages for each stage were combined into this archived project.

About this page

This page simply contains a list of all U.S. circuit and district courts. It is maintained here to make it easier to cut-and-paste the list of these courts onto project pages within the federal judiciary project.

District courts

District of Maine | District of Massachusetts | District of New Hampshire | District of Puerto Rico | District of Rhode Island | District of Connecticut| Eastern District of New York | Northern District of New York | Southern District of New York | Western District of New York | District of Vermont | District of Delaware | District of New Jersey | Eastern District of Pennsylvania | Middle District of Pennsylvania | Western District of Pennsylvania | District of Maryland | Eastern District of North Carolina | Middle District of North Carolina | Western District of North Carolina | District of South Carolina| Eastern District of Virginia | Western District of Virginia | Northern District of West Virginia | Southern District of West Virginia Eastern District of Louisiana | Middle District of Louisiana | Western District of Louisiana | Northern District of Mississippi | Southern District of Mississippi | Eastern District of Texas | Northern District of Texas | Southern District of Texas | Western District of Texas | Eastern District of Kentucky | Western District of Kentucky | Eastern District of Michigan | Western District of Michigan | Northern District of Ohio | Southern District of Ohio | Eastern District of Tennessee | Middle District of Tennessee | Western District of Tennessee | Central District of Illinois | Northern District of Illinois | Southern District of Illinois | Northern District of Indiana | Southern District of Indiana | Eastern District of Wisconsin | Western District of Wisconsin | Eastern District of Arkansas | Western District of Arkansas | Northern District of Iowa | Southern District of Iowa | District of Minnesota | Eastern District of Missouri | Western District of Missouri | District of Nebraska | District of North Dakota | District of South Dakota | District of Alaska | District of Arizona | Central District of California | Eastern District of California | Northern District of California | Southern District of California | District of Hawaii | District of Idaho | District of Montana | District of Nevada | District of Oregon | Eastern District of Washington | Western District of Washington | District of Colorado | District of Kansas | District of New Mexico | Eastern District of Oklahoma | Northern District of Oklahoma | Western District of Oklahoma | District of Utah | District of Wyoming | Middle District of Alabama | Northern District of Alabama | Southern District of Alabama | Middle District of Florida | Northern District of Florida | Southern District of Florida | Middle District of Georgia | Northern District of Georgia | Southern District of Georgia

Circuit courts

First Circuit | Second Circuit | Third Circuit | Fourth Circuit | Fifth Circuit | Sixth Circuit | Seventh Circuit | Eighth | Ninth | Tenth | Eleventh

See also

• For the current Federal Courts WikiProject, see: Judgepedia:WikiProject Federal Judiciary.
• The companion archived project is Judgepedia:WikiProject Federal Judges - Archived.

Stage 1

About this page

This page describes three tasks that need to be completed in the overall federal judiciary project. Once these tasks are completed, you should cross-out the task here and on this page.

Install talk page template

Go through each article below and install {{WikiProject federal judiciary}} on the article's talk page.

Install TOC nest right

Go through each article below and install {{TOCnestright}} at the top of the article.

Install courts template

• Go through each article below and check to see whether the article has the U.S. courts of appeal template installed at the bottom of the article.
• If the template is not on the page, install it by typing {{U.S. courts of appeal}} after any reference section, and before any categories.

Stage 2

About this page

This page describes three tasks that need to be done in the overall federal judiciary project. Once these tasks are completed, you should cross-out the task here and on this page.

Add category identifying state

Go through each article below and install a category indicating the geographic location of the state. This category should always be in the form of [[Category:Courts in NAME OF STATE]].

Identify appellate court

Go through each article below. The introductory paragraph should identify the name of the appellate court where decisions of the district court are appealed. If it doesn't, that sentence should be added in the form of "When decisions of the court are appealed, they are appealed to [[NAME OF FEDERAL APPELLATE COURT]]."

Add graphic for court seal

• Check the article to see if it includes a graphic for the seal of the court.
• If the article does not include a graphic representation of the court's seal, check the court's official website to see if you can ascertain whether the court has a seal. (Some of the circuit and district courts have seals, some don't...some just use the main seal for the federal judiciary.)
• If the court has a seal, but the seal does not appear on the Judgepedia article about the court, install a graphic for the seal on the article. (Use the "thumb" feature and caption the seal).
• United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island is an article where this has been done correctly.
• When you're done with some or all, cross-through those you have completed. (In order to cross-through, type <strike> and </strike> before and after the words you are crossing-through.)

Stage 3

About this page

This page describes a limited set of tasks that need to be one in the overall federal judiciary project. Once these tasks are completed, you should cross-out the task here and on this page.

External links

Go through each article below. Check to make sure that the article includes these external links:

• An external link to the court's official website.
• An external link to the subpage of the court's official website that lists judges of the court.

Magistrate judges

Go through each article below and determine whether it includes a list of the court's:

• Senior judges
• Magistrate judges.

If it doesn't, add links for those judges.

Stage 4

How judges are listed on court pages

• List of judges on the federal court pages are created automatically using Dynamic Page Lists (DPL). Those lists are generated from categories on the bottom of judges' pages.

Stage 5

About this page

This page describes one task that needs to be completed in the overall federal judiciary project. Once these tasks are completed, you should cross-out the task here and on this page.

Court history

Each of the 94 district court articles should include a section on the history of the court.

The article on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania gives an example of what that history section should look like.

Here is what you should aim for:

• A few introductory sentences stating when the court was established and major events such as if and when it was split off from a larger district or a change was made in where its decisions were appealed.
• A chronological list of key events in the history of the court.
• One primary research link for this is found at the Federal Judicial Center.

• To find the history for a particular court, go to the FJC homepage.
• Choose the menu item, "Courts of the federal judiciary"
• If you are looking for the history of a U.S. District Court, choose that link, etc.
• On the left of the page, you'll see a drop-down menu by state. Choose the state where your federal court is located.
• Once you're on the history page for the court you'll be writing about, you can find a specific URL just for that page to use as your citation/reference by using the "Show Only This Frame" feature on your Firefox browser.

• Note that since the FJC does court histories by state, the history page you find will often have historical facts that are irrelevant to the particular district court you're writing about. (Make sure to edit out information that is not relevant to the particular court you're writing about.)
• Make sure to wiki-link the information you add in your history chart where relevant.

Chart header

There is a template for the chart header used in the federal court history sections. It is {{History chart header}}.