# Federal Judiciary Tree An ASCII-art map of the **U.S. federal court system** — the Supreme Court at the apex, the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals beneath it, the ninety-four U.S. District Courts where cases begin, and the specialized, surveillance, and Article I courts that sit alongside the main Article III hierarchy. Appeals flow **upward (▲)**: a case tried in a district court is reviewed by its regional circuit, and the Supreme Court sits atop all of it. Composition reflects the court as of **July 1, 2026**. The third of the branch-level maps, alongside the [[Congressional Committees Tree]] (legislative) and the [[Executive Branch Org Chart]] (executive). Where those map *who leads* the political branches, this maps the structure of the branch that is *appointed, not elected* — and, in the vault's terms, the terrain of the long judicial-selection project. > [!note] How to read this chart > Only the **nine Supreme Court justices are named** — lower-court judges number in the hundreds and their **chief judges rotate by seniority**, so rostering them would date immediately. Circuits are shown by the **states and territories they cover**; district courts by **count and structure**. The **▲ arrows** trace where a court's decisions are appealed. `(appt. …)` gives each justice's appointing president and year — a stable historical fact, not a current-officeholder claim. **Article I / legislative courts** are included for completeness but sit outside the Article III judiciary. ``` U.S. FEDERAL JUDICIARY — STRUCTURE & COMPOSITION (as of July 1, 2026) │ Article III courts (appeals flow upward ▲) + Article I/IV courts alongside │ Named only at the Supreme Court; lower-court chief judges rotate by seniority │ ■ SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES (SCOTUS) — 9 justices · final appellate + limited original jurisdiction │ │ Chief Justice presides; each justice is the "circuit justice" for one or more circuits │ │ │ ├─ Chief Justice ...... John G. Roberts Jr. (appt. G.W. Bush, 2005) │ ├─ Associate Justice .. Clarence Thomas (appt. G.H.W. Bush, 1991 — longest-serving) │ ├─ Associate Justice .. Samuel A. Alito Jr. (appt. G.W. Bush, 2006) │ ├─ Associate Justice .. Sonia Sotomayor (appt. Obama, 2009) │ ├─ Associate Justice .. Elena Kagan (appt. Obama, 2010) │ ├─ Associate Justice .. Neil M. Gorsuch (appt. Trump, 2017) │ ├─ Associate Justice .. Brett M. Kavanaugh (appt. Trump, 2018) │ ├─ Associate Justice .. Amy Coney Barrett (appt. Trump, 2020) │ └─ Associate Justice .. Ketanji Brown Jackson (appt. Biden, 2022) │ current balance: 6 Republican-appointed · 3 Democratic-appointed (a 6–3 conservative majority) │ ├─◆ U.S. COURTS OF APPEALS — 13 circuits (intermediate appellate) ▲ hear appeals from the district courts │ │ 12 regional circuits + 1 nationwide subject-matter circuit; each led by a Chief Judge (rotates by seniority) │ │ │ ├─ D.C. Circuit ......... District of Columbia [agency & administrative-law review; the "second-highest court"] │ ├─ First Circuit ........ ME · MA · NH · RI · Puerto Rico │ ├─ Second Circuit ....... CT · NY · VT │ ├─ Third Circuit ........ DE · NJ · PA · U.S. Virgin Islands │ ├─ Fourth Circuit ....... MD · VA · WV · NC · SC │ ├─ Fifth Circuit ........ LA · MS · TX │ ├─ Sixth Circuit ........ KY · MI · OH · TN │ ├─ Seventh Circuit ...... IL · IN · WI │ ├─ Eighth Circuit ....... AR · IA · MN · MO · NE · ND · SD │ ├─ Ninth Circuit ........ AK · AZ · CA · HI · ID · MT · NV · OR · WA · Guam · N. Mariana Is. │ ├─ Tenth Circuit ........ CO · KS · NM · OK · UT · WY │ ├─ Eleventh Circuit ..... AL · FL · GA │ └─ Federal Circuit ...... nationwide by subject-matter: patents · int'l trade · federal claims · veterans │ ├─◆ U.S. DISTRICT COURTS — 94 districts (federal trial courts of general jurisdiction) ▲ appeal to the regional circuit │ │ ≥1 district per state (larger states split into 2–4) + D.C. + Puerto Rico + territorial courts │ │ │ ├─ Units within each district: │ │ ├─ U.S. Bankruptcy Court ....... one unit per district (Article I, under the district court) │ │ └─ U.S. Magistrate Judges ...... assist district judges (pretrial matters & misdemeanors) │ └─ Territorial district courts (Article IV): Guam · N. Mariana Islands · U.S. Virgin Islands │ ├─◆ SPECIALIZED ARTICLE III COURT │ └─ U.S. Court of International Trade ......... customs & international-trade cases ▲ appeals to the Federal Circuit │ ├─◆ SURVEILLANCE COURTS (staffed by designated Article III judges) │ ├─ Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) ...... reviews/approves FISA surveillance applications │ └─ Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ... reviews FISC denials ▲ then SCOTUS │ ├─◆ ARTICLE I / LEGISLATIVE COURTS (created by Congress; outside the Article III judiciary) │ ├─ U.S. Tax Court ............................ ▲ appeals to the taxpayer's regional circuit │ ├─ U.S. Court of Federal Claims .............. monetary claims against the U.S. ▲ appeals to the Federal Circuit │ ├─ U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims . ▲ appeals to the Federal Circuit │ └─ U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces military justice ▲ review by SCOTUS │ └─◆ JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION (governance & support, not adjudication) ├─ Judicial Conference of the United States ... national policy-making body (Chief Justice presides) ├─ Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts .... day-to-day administration of the branch ├─ Federal Judicial Center .................... research & judicial education └─ U.S. Sentencing Commission ................. sets federal sentencing guidelines ``` ## Notes Structural and interpretive notes: - **The 6–3 majority.** Three of the current justices (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett) were appointed in a single presidential term, producing the six-to-three conservative majority that defines the present Court. All six in that majority passed through the [[Federalist Society]]-linked selection pipeline — the through-line the KB tracks under judicial capture. - **Circuit justices.** Each justice is assigned as "circuit justice" for one or more of the thirteen circuits, handling emergency applications (stays, injunctions) from that circuit. Assignments are set by the Chief Justice and change over time, so they are not rostered here. - **Chief judges rotate.** A circuit or district chief judge is not appointed to the role — the position passes by statute to the most senior active judge under 65 who has not yet served, for up to seven years. That churn is why lower-court leadership is left off the map. - **The Fifth Circuit** (LA·MS·TX) and **D.C. Circuit** carry outsized weight in the current landscape — the Fifth as the venue of choice for challenges to federal policy, the D.C. Circuit as the near-mandatory path for agency and administrative-law disputes. - **District count.** The ninety-four districts cover the fifty states (each with 1–4), plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as Article III districts; Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are Article IV territorial courts whose judges serve fixed terms rather than for life. - **Article I vs. Article III.** Judges of the Tax Court, Court of Federal Claims, and the Article I appellate courts serve fixed terms and lack the life tenure and salary protection that Article III judges hold — a constitutional distinction, not a mere administrative one. This map covers the court system's skeleton. It does not roster individual circuit or district judges, name chief judges, or track the current partisan balance of each circuit's active bench — those live in the dedicated hubs below. ## See also - [[How a Nominee Becomes a Federal Judge]] — how the seats on this tree get filled: vacancy creation, selection, the blue slip, and the floor - [[How a Federal Prosecution Begins and Ends]] — what a criminal case does as it moves through these courts, and the two stages that decide the outcome before it reaches any of them - [[Congressional Committees Tree]] · [[Executive Branch Org Chart]] — the legislative- and executive-branch companion maps - [[Intelligence Community Tree]] · [[Presidential Line of Succession]] — the IC-federation and executive-continuity maps - [[Judiciary Hub]] — the branch overview and its capture dynamics - [[Supreme Court of the United States]] — the apex court in depth - [[SCOTUS Justices Hub]] — profiles of the nine sitting justices - [[United States Courts of Appeals]] · [[United States District Courts]] — the appellate and trial tiers - [[Federal Judges Hub]] — the lower-court bench and the confirmation pipeline - [[Federalist Society]] — the network behind the judicial-selection project - [[Federal Government Hub]] — the whole-of-government map across all three branches