Circuit Court
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a United States next in rank to the United States Supreme Court. In 1920 there were nine circuits, each consisting of several States, and each is allotted to one of the nine justices of the Supreme Court, who must attend at least one term of court in each district of his circuit every two years. Courts may be held at the same time in different districts of the same circuit. These courts formerly had original jurisdiction, concurrently with those of the States, in civil suits in law or equity for more than $500 between citizens of different States, or where an alien is a party or the United States plaintiff, as well as in revenue cases and some in bankruptcy, and in some criminal cases concerning persons denied citizenship under State laws, or offenses against the United States. Their appelaga late jurisdiction extended to admiralty and maritime cases, to civil actions-referred from the district courts, to patent cases, and some others. Since 1911 these courts, by an act of Congress, have only an appellate jurisdiction. The judges each circuit and the justices of the Supreme Court for the circuit constitute a Circuit Court of Appeals. The First Circuit consists of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Porto Rico. Second-Connecticut, New York, Vermont. Third-Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Fourth-Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, a, West Virginia. Fifth-Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Canal Zone. Sixth-Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee. Seventh-Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin. Eighth-Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Ne Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming. Ninth-Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington. See CREDIT, CIRCULAR NOTES. LETTER OF.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's caught the system mid-transformation: it notes that the old circuit courts, which once tried cases with juries, had been stripped to appellate work, and in fact the Judicial Code of 1911 abolished them outright as of 1912, leaving the Circuit Courts of Appeals to carry the name. Those courts were renamed the United States Courts of Appeals in 1948, and the nine circuits listed here have grown to thirteen: a Tenth was carved out of the sprawling Eighth in 1929, an Eleventh out of the Fifth in 1981, and a Federal Circuit created in 1982, alongside the court for the District of Columbia. The geography has shifted too, most obviously with the disappearance of the Canal Zone from the Fifth Circuit after the 1977 Panama treaties, though Puerto Rico remains in the First. A Supreme Court justice is still assigned to each circuit, but the duty described here, attending a term in every district within two years, is long gone; the modern circuit justice mainly rules on emergency applications.
Written for this edition, 2026.