The Thirteen Federal Circuits

The word circuit comes from the early republic, when Supreme Court justices literally rode circuit, traveling by horse and stagecoach to hold court in groups of states. The Judiciary Act of 1789 created three circuits. Congress added more as the country grew, and when the Evarts Act of 1891 created permanent courts of appeals it organized them by the same circuits. The map has changed rarely since: the Tenth Circuit was carved from the Eighth in 1929, the Eleventh from the Fifth in 1981, and the Federal Circuit, the only one defined by subject rather than geography, was created in 1982.

The eleven numbered circuits divide the states and territories. The First covers Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico. The Second covers New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. The Third covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands. The Fourth covers Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the Carolinas. The Fifth covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The Sixth covers Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The Seventh covers Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. The Eighth covers seven states from Minnesota to Arkansas. The Ninth covers nine western states plus Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. The Tenth covers six Mountain and Plains states. The Eleventh covers Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.

The District of Columbia Circuit hears appeals from the D.C. district court and, by statute, direct challenges to many federal agency rules, making it the country's most important administrative law court. The Federal Circuit, in Washington, hears appeals nationwide in patent cases and claims against the government, along with trade, veterans, and federal employee cases. Each circuit is assigned a Supreme Court justice as circuit justice, who handles emergency applications from that circuit, such as requests to stay an execution or block an injunction.

Because a circuit's decisions bind only the courts within it, the same federal law can have different meanings in different regions, and lawyers choose where to file accordingly. The circuits differ in size, from the First with six judgeships to the Ninth with twenty-nine, and in reputation, with the Fifth and Ninth often described as the most conservative and most liberal, though appointments under recent presidents have shifted the balance in several. Proposals to split the Ninth Circuit, the country's largest, have recurred for decades without success.