United States district court

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 . ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ They, perhaps, manifest the opinion of the legislature, that the jurisdiction was in the Circuit Courts; but ought, we think, to be construed to give it, if it did not previously exist. Any other construction would destroy the effect of those words. The District Court cannot take cognizance concurrent with the Circuit Courts, unless the Circuit Courts can take cognizance of the same suits. For one body to do a thing concurrently with another, is to act in conjunction with that other; it is equivalent to saying, the one may act together with the other. ”

“ The 1901 Code gave the Government 'the same right of appeal that is given to the defendant,' while the 1926 amendment to the Code restricted the defendant's right of appeal to those decisions of the Supreme Court (now District Court) that have a 'final' effect, as that term is understood in defining appellate jurisdiction. We conclude that full force cannot be given to the limitations imposed on criminal appeals in the District of Columbia unless the Government is restricted as is the defendant. ”

“ 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 ”

“ In the printed argument, however, upon which the matter has been here submitted, the action of the court is sought to be sustained upon a much broader ground; viz., that as, by the Judicial Code, the circuit courts were abolished, it has become no longer possible to organize a court in accordance with the expedition act, because that act by implication has been repealed by the Judicial Code. Thus, after commenting upon the provisions of the Judicial Code, it is said:
'The Judicial Code (§ 1, chap. 1) provides for a district judge for each district court. ”

“ Dismissal of a properly pled federal claim does not retroactively deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction. See Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 682 (1946) (federal jurisdiction is not defeated by the possibility that complaint fails to state a cause of action on which a plaintiff could actually recover) . Nor does the court's dismissal of all substantive claims deprive the court of authority to enforce a previously entered sanction. A district court retains jurisdiction to impose and enforce sanctions until the court enters a final judgment. [10] See Fed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The majority has no answer. At bottom, its approval of Reed’s claim is intelligible only upon the supposition that the district attorney may be sued as a mere stand-in for the State as a whole, such that Reed can urge against him the due process violations that the State allegedly committed through its courts. That is a profound mistake. True, the district attorney and the CCA are both state actors. But, States act in different ways through their different entities and officers, and the nature of a challenged state action determines what federal-court remedy may be available. ”

“ The United States admiralty courts have always had jurisdiction in matters of prize (The Prize Cases, 2 Black U.S. Rep. 635) . The district courts have exclusive original jurisdiction (except that circuit courts also have jurisdiction when prize is taken from persons in insurrection) , and the supreme court of the District of Columbia now has concurrent jurisdiction (U.S. v. Sampson, 1902, 187 U.S. 436) and appeals are direct to the Supreme Court. ”

“ When Congress wants to authorize an interlocutory appeal and to automatically stay the district court proceedings during that appeal, Congress need not say anything about a stay. At least absent contrary indications, the background Griggs principle already requires an automatic stay of district court proceedings that relate to any aspect of the case involved in the appeal. By contrast, when Congress wants to authorize an interlocutory appeal, but not to automatically stay district court proceedings pending that appeal, Congress typically says so. ”

“ The court thought that a §2 plaintiff cannot proffer a reasonably configured majority-minority district without first attempting to see if it is possible to create such a district—that is, by first making the identification of such a district “non-negotiable.” Ibid. But that is simply not so. A plaintiff’s expert can first create maps using only criteria that do not give race a predominant role and then determine how many contain the desired number of majority-minority districts. ”

“ It also makes sense. Because a purely legal question is, by definition, one whose answer is independent of disputed facts, factual development at trial will not change the district court’s answer. (Granted, the district court might backtrack, but if the question is purely legal, that is because of law books, not trial exhibits.) So what would a repeat-motion requirement for legal questions typically amount to? For litigants, a copy and paste of summary-judgment motions into post-trial format. For district courts, the tedium of saying no twice. ”

“ Defendants assert the Seventh Amendment provides the right to a jury because Plaintiff's complaint sought money damages.
Defendants would have been entitled to a jury at a trial on the merits of Plaintiff's legal claims. But the set-off hearing was not a trial on the merits of these claims. Instead the district court held the hearing following its entry of default for Defendants' willful discovery violations. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 37 (b) (2) . Defendants do not have a constitutional right to a jury trial following entry of default. ”

“ The plaintiffs adduced eleven illustrative maps—that is, example districting maps that Alabama could enact—each of which contained two majority-black districts that comported with traditional districting criteria. With respect to compactness, for example, the District Court explained that the maps submitted by one of plaintiffs’ experts, Dr. Moon Duchin, “perform [ed] generally better on average than” did HB1. 582 F. Supp. 3d, at 1009. A map offered by another of plaintiffs’ experts, Bill Cooper, produced districts roughly as compact as the existing plan. ”

“ We have explained that the first precondition also takes into account other traditional districting criteria like attempting to avoid the splitting of political subdivisions and “communities of interest.” League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U. S. 399, 433–434 (2006) (LULAC) .
To its credit, the Court recognizes that compactness is not enough and that a district is not reasonably configured if it flouts other “traditional districting criteria.” Ante, at 10. ”