Judicial Code of 1911

The Judicial Code of 1911 (Pub.L. 61–475, 36 Stat. 1087, enacted March 3, 1911) abolished the United States circuit courts and transferred their trial jurisdiction to the U.S. district courts.

In 1911, the United States Congress created a single code encompassing all statutes related to the judiciary and took the opportunity to revise and unify existing laws. At the same time, Congress abolished the U.S. circuit courts as of January 1, 1912, the effective date of the statute. Established by the Judiciary Act of 1789, the circuit courts served as the most important trial courts of the federal judiciary for over a century. The circuit courts lost their limited appellate jurisdiction in the Judiciary Act of 1891, which created the U.S. courts of appeals, but as part of the political compromise behind the 1891 Act, the circuit courts continued to serve as trial courts alongside the district courts for the next 20 years. By abolishing the circuit courts and transferring their jurisdiction and pending business to the district courts, Congress instituted a judicial system with a single type of trial court and eliminated the inefficiencies associated with administering two types of court that were often presided over by the same judge.

The remainder of the Judicial Code of 1911 was not so much a reorganization of the structure or procedures of the federal courts as it was a standardization of law governing the judiciary. Over more than 120 years, many contradictory statutes had accumulated through legislation approved for the purpose of organizing individual courts. Congress had first gathered the statutes related to the judiciary into a single code in the Revised Statutes adopted in 1874, but the resulting Title XIII preserved all of the legislation then in effect without reconciling the varying rules and court structures that often applied to the same types of courts in different parts of the country. In 1899, Congress appointed a commission to recommend revisions in the judicial code, and the subsequent report became the basis of the proposed revision submitted to Congress in March 1910.

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