# Eleventh Circuit The **United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit** — the federal appellate court for **Alabama, Florida and Georgia**, sitting in Atlanta. It is referenced across more than twenty pages here without having had one of its own, which is the gap this page closes. It was created on **October 1, 1981**, when Congress split it off from the Fifth Circuit. Fifth Circuit decisions issued before that date remain binding precedent in the Eleventh, which is why civil-rights cases from the old Fifth still govern in three Deep South states. ## Why this circuit specifically Two features make it matter here more than its size suggests. **It is the appellate backstop for Florida.** Every case that begins in the [[Southern District of Florida]] — and in the Middle and Northern Districts — ends up here on appeal. That means the [[Mar-a-Lago Documents Case]], [[Trump v. Clinton]], and the Florida election and speech litigation covered here all run through the same twelve judges. A trial-court ruling in Fort Pierce or Miami is provisional until this court has looked at it. **Half its bench was appointed in one presidential term.** The court has **twelve authorized active judgeships**, all currently filled, with no vacancies. By appointing president: | Appointed by | Active judges | |---|---| | George W. Bush | 1 — Chief Judge [[William Pryor]] | | Barack Obama | 3 | | **Donald Trump** (first term) | **6** | | Joe Biden | 2 | Six of twelve is the number to hold onto. It is the largest single-term share of any federal appellate bench outside the Fifth Circuit, and it was assembled between 2017 and February 2020. The practical consequence is that a Florida case drawing a random three-judge panel has a meaningful chance of drawing a panel with no Democratic appointee on it at all. That cuts in more than one direction, and the record shows it. The same bench has ruled against the administration's interests as well as for them — a unanimous panel including five Trump nominees rejected Trump's own appeal in his suit against CNN. A court's composition shapes its probabilities; it does not dictate its outcomes, and this page should not be read as claiming otherwise. ## Why it matters - **Venue strategy.** Litigants choose where to file. Filing in Florida means an appeal to this circuit, and that calculation is part of why so much Trump-adjacent civil litigation starts there. See [[Southern District of Florida]]. - **The judicial-appointment through-line.** The circuit is the cleanest available illustration of what a single term of judicial appointments does to an institution that outlasts it. Six judges confirmed in three years will be deciding Alabama, Florida and Georgia appeals into the 2050s. - **Speech and platform law.** Florida's social-media and education statutes — [[Stop WOKE Act]] and the platform law behind the [[Section 230]] fights — were litigated through this court before reaching the Supreme Court. - **Election litigation.** Florida ballot-access and election-administration cases, including [[Jacobson v. Florida Secretary of State]], are decided here, which matters in the redistricting and ballot-position fight traced at [[State Ballot Position Crosswalk]]. ## See Also - [[Southern District of Florida]] — the trial court below it that generates most of the cases covered here - [[DC Circuit]] — the other circuit with an outsized share of the litigation covered here - [[United States Courts of Appeals]] · [[Federal Judiciary Tree]] · [[Judiciary Hub]] - [[William Pryor]] — the chief judge - [[Mar-a-Lago Documents Case]] · [[Trump v. Clinton]] — the two largest cases on appeal here - [[How an Emergency Stay Application Moves Through the Courts]] · [[How a Case Reaches the Supreme Court]]