US Court of Appeals for DC

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) known informally as the D.C. Circuit, is the federal appellate court for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Appeals from the D.C. Circuit, as with all the U.S. Courts of Appeals, are heard on a discretionary basis by the Supreme Court. It should not be confused with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is limited in jurisdiction by subject matter rather than geography, or with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which is roughly equivalent to a state supreme court in the District of Columbia, established in 1970 to relieve the D.C. Circuit from having to take appeals from the local D.C. trial court.

While it has the smallest geographic jurisdiction of any of the United States courts of appeals, the D.C. Circuit, with eleven active judgeships, is arguably the most important inferior appellate court. The court is given the responsibility of directly reviewing the decisions and rulemaking of many federal independent agencies of the United States government based in the national capital, often without prior hearing by a district court. Aside from the agencies whose statutes explicitly direct review by the D.C. Circuit, the court typically hears cases from other agencies under the more general jurisdiction granted to the Courts of Appeals under the Administrative Procedure Act. Given the broad areas over which federal agencies have power, this often gives the judges of the D.C. Circuit a central role in affecting national U.S. policy and law. Because of this, the D.C. Circuit is often referred to as the second most powerful court in the United States, second only to the Supreme Court

A judgeship on the D.C. Circuit is often thought of as a stepping-stone for appointment to the Supreme Court. As of February 2016, three of the nine justices on the Supreme Court are alumni of the D.C. Circuit: Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Elena Kagan was nominated by Bill Clinton to the same seat that Roberts would later fill, but was never given a vote in the Senate. In addition, Chief Justices Fred M. Vinson and Warren Burger, as well as Associate Justices Wiley Blount Rutledge and Antonin Scalia, served on the D.C. Circuit before their elevations to the Supreme Court. In 1987, the Reagan Administration put forth two failed nominees from the D.C. Circuit: former Judge Robert Bork, who was rejected by the Senate, and former (2001–2008) Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg (no relation to Ruth Bader Ginsburg), who withdrew his nomination after it became known that he had used marijuana as a college student and professor in the 1960s and 1970s.