Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture

Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture
Established	January 15, 1780
Dissolved	June 21, 1788
Country	United States
Location	Various Locations within the United States
Composition method	Selection by the Confederation Congress
Authorized by	Statute Enacted by the Confederation Congress
Decisions are appealed to	None Available
No. of positions	3

The former Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture, established by resolution of the Congress of the Confederation on January 15, 1780, was the first federal court in the United States of America.

The idea for the Court originated from requests sent by General George Washington during the American Revolution to President of Congress John Hancock, but initially resulted in only the establishment of committees within Congress to exercise such jurisdiction. Upon learning of this deviation from his earlier requests, Washington sent another request to Hancock again asking that Congress establish the Court, but Congress did not fulfill his request until almost four years later.

Although specific express power to establish the Court was granted to Congress in the Articles of Confederation, the Articles of Confederation were not yet fully ratified by all thirteen of the original states when Congress established the Court on January 15, 1780. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress nonetheless had inherent power at that time to establish the Court.

The Court operated from shortly after its founding in 1780 through its final cases in 1787. It officially ceased to exist following ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789 that transferred federal judicial power to the newly created U.S. Supreme Court and such other inferior (i.e., lower) federal courts as Congress may establish.

...
Wikipedia