United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
(D.C. Cir.)
Location	E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse (Washington, D.C.)
Appeals from	District of Columbia
Established	February 9, 1893
Judges	11
Circuit Justice	John Roberts
Chief Judge	Sri Srinivasan
cadc.uscourts.gov

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. The D.C. Circuit has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. courts of appeals, and it covers only one district court: the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.^[a] It meets at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, DC.

The D.C. Circuit's status and prestige among American federal courts is generally considered to be second only to the U.S. Supreme Court. Its geographic jurisdiction contains the U.S. Capitol and the headquarters of many U.S. federal executive departments and government agencies. As a result, the D.C. Circuit tends to be the main federal appellate court for issues of American administrative law, constitutional law, and other related areas.^[2] Four of the nine current Supreme Court justices were previously judges on the D.C. Circuit: Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Past justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, Warren E. Burger, Fred M. Vinson, and Wiley Blount Rutledge also served as judges on the D.C. Circuit before their appointments to the Supreme Court.

Because the D.C. Circuit does not represent any state, confirmation of nominees can be procedurally and practically easier than for nominees to the Courts of Appeals for the other geographical districts, as home-state senators have historically been able to hold up confirmation through the blue slip process.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).