United States Circuit Court
The United States circuit courts were the original intermediate level courts of the United States federal court system. They were established by the Judiciary Act of 1789. They had trial court jurisdiction over civil suits of diversity jurisdiction and major federal crimes. They also had appellate jurisdiction over the United States district courts. The Judiciary Act of 1891 (26 Stat. 826, also known as the Evarts Act) transferred their appellate jurisdiction to the newly created United States circuit courts of appeals, which are now known as the United States courts of appeals. On January 1, 1912, the effective date of the Judicial Code of 1911, the circuit courts were abolished, with their remaining trial court jurisdiction transferred to the U.S. district courts.
During the 100 years that the Justices of the Supreme Court "rode circuit", many justices complained about the effort required. Riding circuit took a great deal of time (about 1/2 of the year) and was both physically demanding and dangerous. However, "members of Congress held firm to the belief that circuit riding benefited the justices and the populace, and they turned a deaf ear to the corps of justices that desired to abolish the practice".
The Judiciary Act of 1869 established a separate circuit court (and allowed the hiring of judges specifically to handle the cases) but the act required that Supreme Court judges had to ride circuit once every two years. However, this came to a final end in 1891 when the Circuit Courts of Appeals Act was passed.
The net result of riding circuit was that, in many cases which ended up before the Supreme Court, a member of the Supreme Court had already heard the case and issued a ruling. In a real sense, the Supreme Court was, in such cases, acting as an en banc panel; i.e. hearing a case upon which one of their members had already passed judgment.
Read more about United States Circuit Court: Organization, Judges
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, circuit and/or court:
“Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“The boys dressed themselves, hid their accoutrements, and went off grieving that there were no outlaws any more, and wondering what modern civilization could claim to have done to compensate for their loss. They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“It is impossible for a stranger traveling through the United States to tell from the appearance of the people or the country whether he is in Toledo, Ohio, or Portland, Oregon. Ninety million Americans cut their hair in the same way, eat each morning exactly the same breakfast, tie up the small girls’ curls with precisely the same kind of ribbon fashioned into bows exactly alike; and in every way all try to look and act as much like all the others as they can.”
—Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe (1865–1922)
“The Father and His angelic hierarchy
That made the magnitude and glory there
Stood in the circuit of a needle’s eye.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The Twist was a guided missile, launched from the ghetto into the very heart of suburbia. The Twist succeeded, as politics, religion, and law could never do, in writing in the heart and soul what the Supreme Court could only write on the books.”
—Eldridge Cleaver (b. 1935)