U.S.
GOVERNMENT > The Three Branches > Judicial Branch > U.S. District Courts
Most federal cases are initially tried and decided in the U.S. district courts, the federal courts of general trial jurisdiction. There are 94 district courts in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territories of Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. A district may itself be divided into divisions and may have several places where the court hears cases. Each district court also has a bankruptcy unit.
Figure 3 depicts a flowchart of a typical civil case.
Figure 4 depicts a flowchart of a typical criminal case.
For more information, see the Directory of U.S. District Courts.
District Court Judges
With the exception of the three territorial courts, all district court judges are appointed for life by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. Congress authorizes judgeships for each district based in large part on the caseload. In each district, the judge who has served on the court the longest and who is under 65 years of age is designated as the chief judge. The chief judge has administrative duties in addition to a caseload. There currently are 646 district court judges. See also courts of appeals judges.
Magistrate judges also handle a variety of matters including civil consent cases, misdemeanor trials, preliminary hearings, and pre-trial motions.
