United States territorial court

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The United States territorial courts are tribunals established in territories of the United States by the United States Congress, pursuant to its power under Article Four of the United States Constitution, the Territorial Clause.^[1] Most United States territorial courts are defunct because the territories under their jurisdiction have become states or been retroceded.

There are three currently operating United States territorial courts:^[2]

• District Court of Guam
• District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands
• District Court of the Virgin Islands

Their jurisdiction is similar to that of United States district courts, but despite the similarity of names, they are not "United States district courts" (though they sometimes use that term). "United States district courts", created under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, exist only in United States federal judicial districts, which are found only in the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

The territorial courts themselves, as Article IV courts, also assume the jurisdiction of a United States bankruptcy court in their respective territories; they do not have separate bankruptcy courts under their supervision, as do the Article III U.S. district courts.

Article IV judges do not have the authority to decide petitioners' appeals or be appointed to a United States Court of Appeals.^[1] The U.S. Supreme Court case Nguyen v. United States, 539 U.S. 69 (2003), presented the question of whether a panel of the Court of Appeals consisting of two Article III judges and one Article IV judge had the authority to decide petitioners' appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court declared that it did not.

There is no federal court in the territory of American Samoa.^[3] Matters of federal law arising in American Samoa have generally been adjudicated in the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii or the District Court for the District of Columbia.^[3]