Administrative Heritage and Reform, 1789–1922

The Framework

From its inception, the hallmarks of the federal judiciary's administrative system have been independence, decentralization, and individualism. The courts in their judicial decision-making were rendered independent of the executive and legislative branches of government by Article III of the Constitution. That Article's guarantee of tenure during good behavior and undiminished salary while a judge held office reinforced judicial independence and promoted the administrative autonomy of each magistrate.

Congress, however, retained great power over the judicial branch, for it might, in its discretion, "ordain and establish" courts inferior to the Supreme Court. As it turned out, legislative exercise of this power assured the creation of a decentralized system of inferior federal courts reflecting the demands of local constituencies. Local influences would be felt not only in the realm of structure, but also in selection, for the Constitution defined judges of the inferior courts as "superior" officers subject to Senate approval. Such judges were likely to be local residents, approved by the Senate, adjudicating in their own home area, and subject to the continuing influence of their environment.

The autonomy of courts and judges for which the Constitution laid a foundation was further promoted by the Judiciary Act of 1789. The Act itself represented a compromise between anti-nationalists and nationalists in the First Congress. As the Federalists had hoped, it created a court system separate from that of the several states. The measure included, however, important provisions which emphasized decentralizing of state and local administrative and political influences. Established was a judicial structure hierarchically organized in three tiers. At the peak was the court of final review — the Supreme Court of the United States. It alone among federal courts traced its existence to a specific provision of Article III. The first Judiciary Act created two additional tiers of inferior courts. One was composed of circuit courts exercising important original as well as some appellate jurisdiction. The other tier contained district courts which were courts of first instance.

The 1789 Act also divided the country into three circuits: Southern, Middle, and Eastern. The boundaries of each one coincided with the boundaries of the several states which made up each circuit and thus opened the courts to state and sectional influences and practices. Reflecting the territorial expansion of the United States, the number of circuits grew to six in 18024 and to nine in 1866, where it remained until 1893, when Congress created the District of Columbia Circuit. Then, in 1929, the Tenth Circuit was organized, bringing the number of circuits to its present eleven circuits.

For each circuit, there existed a circuit court consisting of two members of the Supreme Court, known as circuit justices, and one of the district judges residing within the circuit. Primary responsibility for the light and often mundane workloads of these courts devolved on the local district judges rather than on the justices from the Supreme Court. As business before the highest tribunal increased during the nineteenth century, the presence of circuit justices became virtually impossible. In 1869 Congress provided each circuit with "a circuit judge, who shall reside in his circuit." He enjoyed the same judicial powers exercised by the circuit-riding Supreme Court justices as well as administrative power to appoint the clerk of his court.

The landmark 1891 Court of Appeals Act retained the old circuit courts, circuit duty for the justices of the Supreme Court, and the existing circuit structure. The measure, however, added circuit judges, laid the groundwork for terminating Supreme Court circuit duties, abolished the appellate jurisdiction of the circuit courts, and established tribunals with clearly-defined intermediate appellate jurisdiction. The old circuit courts, shorn of their appellate jurisdiction, lingered on for another two decades, while the new circuit courts of appeals expanded in size and jurisdiction during the twentieth century.

In addition to the circuit courts, the first Judiciary Act divided the country, then composed of eleven states, into thirteen districts with a court for each district. The boundary of no single district extended beyond that of the state in which it was located. Although Massachusetts and Virginia both received two districts under the 1789 Act, both were contained within each state. Thus the lowest tier of the federal judicial system consisted of thirteen districts, one or more to a state. With a few exceptions, these districts were in turn self-contained within circuits composed of several states. Those states organized into two or more districts always lay wholly within a single circuit: they were never divided among different circuits. The early nineteenth-century system of single districts comprising an entire state and single district judges gradually became transformed into one in which nearly half the states have two or more districts and all district courts except Wyoming, New Hampshire, and Maine have multi-judge tribunals. Thus, from a handful of single-judge district courts in 1789 the number of federal trial courts had soared to eighty-nine in 1969, composed of 327 district judges in regular active service.

From the Act of 1789 and subsequent measures pertaining to the structure of the federal judiciary emerged three important characteristics: independence, decentralization, and individualism. These characteristics were particularly apparent in judicial administration. Here courts in all three tiers enjoyed virtual autonomy. Judges in administrative matters were not only independent of Congress and of the President but of each other as well. Congress, in the words of Felix Frankfurter and James Landis, had "created a hierarchical system of courts, not of judges." No significant supervisory power over judges was lodged in any court. And participation by members of the Supreme Court in the legal work of the lower courts little mitigated the centrifugal thrust built into the judicial institution.

The Circuit Justices

The "circuit riding"...