United States district attorney

“ Whenever the attorney general calls upon a district attorney to appear for the government in a case pending in the court of appeals, he is not directing him in the discharge of his official duties as district attorney, but is employing him as special counsel. ”

“ If the attorney general has the right, upon information derived from a statement made to him by a district attorney as to the facts and circumstances of a trial in court, to reduce a fee allowed by the court, he may with equal right and propriety increase such fee, should he determine that the judge had underestimated the importance and difficulty of the cause tried before him, and had undervalued the services of such district attorney. ”

“ Section 4 of the Sherman Act invests the several district courts with jurisdiction to restrain violations of the Act; and it imposes on district attorneys of the United States, under the direction of the Attorney General, the duty to institute suits in equity in their respective districts, to restrain such violations. ”

“ If the majority thinks the district attorney is wrong about that, it would only be fair to explain exactly what change in conduct would be legally required of him if Reed prevailed on his due process claim. The majority fails to do so. ”

“ The discretionary fee that 'may be allowed' to a district attorney for securing a conviction in a case of indictment for a crime tried by a jury is none the less an incident to the trial and judgment because its allowance is contingent upon a conviction. Both before and since the enactment of the statute of 1853, courts, in the exercise of their discretion, have allowed counsel fees in many cases without question when reviewed by this court. ”

“ The district attorney accordingly set to work to prepare and certify a roll himself. But the custody of rolls was not with him. They were in the power of the clerk, as had been his own sign manual and official seal. The district attorney could control the one no more than he could control the others. He happened, however, to possess copies of all the parts of the record except the transcript sent up by the late Board of Land Commissioners. ”

“ The Constitution does not require any preliminary hearing before issuance of a warrant for removal of an accused to the court having jurisdiction of the charge. [39] The assignment of a district judge from one district to another, conformably to statute, does not create a new judicial district whose boundaries are undefined nor subject the accused to trial in a district not established when the offense with which he is charged was committed. [40] For offenses against federal laws not committed within any State, Congress has the sole power to prescribe the place of trial ”

“ Just because an agency can hear a case does not mean a district court cannot. To decide whether a particular case belongs in an agency rather than a court, you must consult three further “considerations ... commonly known now as the Thunder Basin factors.” Ante, at 7–8.
That’s where the magic happens. The Thunder Basin factors require assessing whether: (1) “precluding district court jurisdiction” would “foreclose all meaningful judicial review”; (2) the plaintiff ’s claims are “wholly collateral” to the statutory review scheme; and (3) the claims are “outside the agency’s expertise.” ”

“ We have the benefit of the briefing before the district court and its 13-page opinion styled Order of Dismissal, issued January 1, 2021. That order adopts the position of the Department of Justice, finding that the district court lacks jurisdiction because no plaintiff has the standing demanded by Article III. We need say no more, and we affirm the judgment essentially for the reasons stated by the district court. We express no view on the underlying merits or on what putative party, if any, might have standing. The motion to expedite is dismissed as moot. ”

“ We should stop in its infancy, before it has any growth at all, this idea that the United States district judges can be made accountable for their efficiency or lack of it to the judges just over them in the federal judicial system. ”

“ Rather, as we emphasized in the text, the District Judge could not use Rule 33 to sidestep a pre-existing basic principle of judicial process—that once a final judgment is issued and the court of appeals considers a case, a district court has no power to act on it further. ”

“ Avoidance of prolonged uncertainty as to the validity or meaning of a federal criminal law is obviously a desideratum in the effective administration of justice. Moreover, it is clearly desirable to bring to the attention of Congress as promptly as possible any occasion for legislative clarification or amendment. When a District Court holds a criminal statute invalid or gives it a construction inconsistent with the understanding of those in the Executive Branch charged with enforcing it, this policy is well served by expediting ultimate determination of the matter. ”

“ There is no constitutional provision restricting the authority of a district judge to any particular territorial limits. District courts are solely the caeation of statute, and the place in which a judge thereof may exercise jurisdiction is subject absolutely to the control of congress. ”

“ It is elementary that the exclusive responsibility of Congress for the welfare of the District includes both power and duty to provide its inhabitants and citizens with courts adequate to adjudge not only controversies among themselves but also their claims against, as well as suits brought by, citizens of the various states. It long has been held that Congress may clothe District of Columbia courts not only with the jurisdiction and powers of federal courts in the several states but with such authority as a state may confer on her courts. ”

“ While it is appropriate that a single District Judge to whom application is made for an interlocutory injunction restraining the enforcement of a state statute should carefully scrutinize the bill of complaint to ascertain whether a substantial question is presented, to the end that the complainant should not be denied opportunity to be heard in the prescribed manner upon a question that is fairly open to debate, the District Judge clearly has authority to dismiss for the want of jurisdiction when the question lacks the necessary substance and no other ground of jurisdiction appears . ”

“ So, where suits to enforce the laws of one State are entertained in courts of another on principles of comity, federal district courts sitting in that State may entertain them, and should, if they do not infringe federal law or policy. [128] However, the refusal of a territorial court in Hawaii, having jurisdiction of the action, which was on a policy issued by a New York insurance company, to admit evidence that an administrator had been appointed and a suit brought by him on a bond in the federal court in New York wherein no judgment had been entered, did not violate this clause. ”

“ Even if we assume the district court dismissed all substantive claims after entering the order of default, the court retained jurisdiction to enforce the sanction. Defendants argue that constitutional limits on subject matter jurisdiction restrict the district court's authority to enforce a sanction after dismissing all substantive claims. See U.S. Const. Art III, § 2. Article III limits the federal courts' subject matter jurisdiction to specifically defined cases and controversies. ”

“ Because there may be issues of fact in connection with the basis for the opinion of the Attorney General, the burden will be upon you to present sufficient facts for the Fire Marshal to reach an opinion contrary to that previously reached by the Attorney General, assuming that to be your position. If the Fire Marshal concurs that the city is valid for purposes of submitting a partial exemption application, he will render a final decision at the hearing on the subject of the partial exemption application, the application being complete in all other respects. ”

“ Certiorari always has been recognized in the District as a appropriate process for reviewing the proceedings of a subordinate tribunal when it has proceeded, or is proceeding, to judgment without lawful jurisdiction. Kennedy v. Gorman, 4 Cranch, C. C. 347, Fed. Cas. No. 7702; Bates v. District of Columbia, 1 MacArthur (D. C.) 433, 449. And the power to employ the writ inheres in the Supreme Court of the District as possessing a general common-law jurisdiction and supervisory control over inferior tribunals, analogous to that of the King's Bench. United States v. West, 34 App. D. C. 12, 17. ”

“ Since the merely abstractly logical arguments permit 'statute' to be construed in either a restrictive or a broad sense, that is, that appeals to this Court directly from an adjudication of a District Court under the Criminal Appeals Act may appropriately be confined to rulings under a statute as such, rather than to include interpretations of regulations arising under a statute, I not only feel free, but deem it incumbent, to oppose what is certainly a needless if not an irrational increase in the class of cases which can be brought directly to this Court from the District Courts. ”

“ A district court’s resolution of a pure question of law, by contrast, is unaffected by future developments in the case. From the reviewing court’s perspective, there is no benefit to having a district court reexamine a purely legal issue after trial, because nothing at trial will have given the district court any reason to question its prior analysis. We therefore hold that a post-trial motion under Rule 50 is not required to preserve for appellate review a purely legal issue resolved at summary judgment. ”