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February 13, 1801 |
The Judiciary Act of 1801 established the Potomac District, which included the District of Columbia as well as Maryland west of the Patuxent River and Virginia east of the Rappahannock River. The act authorized the district judge of Maryland to preside over the court of the Potomac District, which was to sit in Alexandria, Virginia. (A later act assigned the chief judge of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia to preside over the Potomac district court.) |
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March 8, 1802 |
Repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801 abolished the Potomac District. |
| April 29, 1802 2 Stat. 156 |
The Judiciary Act of 1802 required the chief judge of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia to hold two annual sessions of a district court of the United States in the District of Columbia and declared that the district court would exercise the same jurisdiction and authority vested in other district courts of the United States. |
| March 3, 1863 12 Stat. 762 |
Congress abolished the circuit, district, and criminal courts of the District of Columbia and replaced them with the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. Congress authorized one chief justiceship and three associate justiceships for the court. The court exercised the same jurisdiction as a U.S. circuit court and a U.S. district court, and also had local jurisdiction over civil and criminal matters within the District of Columbia. A single justice could hold a U.S. circuit court, a U.S. district court, a special term of the court dealing with local civil matters, or a local criminal court. The judgments of the special term and criminal court could be reviewed by a general term of the court, consisting of any three justices. Final judgments of the court could be reviewed upon writ of error or appeal by the Supreme Court of the United States. |
| June 21, 1870 16 Stat. 160 |
One additional justiceship authorized. |
| February 25, 1879 20 Stat. 320 |
One additional justiceship authorized. |
| February 9, 1893 27 Stat. 434 |
Congress established the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which had jurisdiction over appeals from the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, and repealed the circuit court jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia |
| December 20, 1928 45 Stat. 1056 |
One additional justiceship authorized. |
| June 19, 1930 46 Stat. 785 |
Two additional justiceships authorized. |
| June 25, 1936 49 Stat. 1921 |
Congress changed the name of the court to the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia. |
| May 31, 1938 52 Stat. 584 |
Three additional justiceships authorized. |
| June 25, 1948 62 Stat. 869, 985 |
The act provided that the chief justice of the court would, as of September 1, 1948, be known as the chief judge. This act was amended by the act of September 3, 1954, 68 Stat. 1226, 1245, which provided retroactively that as of September 1, 1948, the chief justice and associate justices of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia were judges in the same sense as judges of other U.S. district courts. |
| August 3, 1949 63 Stat. 493 |
Three additional judgeships authorized. |
| December 1, 1990 104 Stat. 5089 |
Under the terms of the act, a new judge is to be appointed to any court from which an active judge "assumes the duties of a full-time office of Federal judicial administration." If the judge assuming such a position returns as an active judge of the court, the first vacancy occurring thereafter will not be filled. This act thus provided for the appointment of another judge to the district court in 2013, when a sitting judge, John D. Bates, became director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. |