United States District Court for the District of Columbia

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia, cited as D.D.C., is the federal trial court in Washington, D.C. Congress established it in 1863 as the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, with four justices including a chief justice, replacing the circuit and district courts that had served the District since 1801. In 1936 it was renamed the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia, and it took its present name in 1948, when its justices came to be called judges. It sits in the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse at 333 Constitution Avenue. Appeals go to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, except patent claims and Tucker Act claims against the federal government, which go to the Federal Circuit. Because the District has no local prosecutor, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, whose office is the largest in the nation with around 250 assistant U.S. attorneys, also handles crimes that a state prosecutor would usually handle. The court also sometimes handles federal issues arising in American Samoa.