Defunct federal courts
From Judgepedia
Since the passage of the Judiciary Act of 1789[1], the United States has always had an active system of federal courts, but in the time since then, Congress, by the authority of Article III of the United States Constitution[2], has passed dozens of laws altering and/or expanding the federal judiciary. This usually involves re-defining, combining, or dividing areas of jurisdiction, which means that old courts are abolished as new courts are set up. For example, the slide show at right illustrates briefly the history of the federal district court system in Illinois. Notice that currently, Illinois is divided into three federal districts: Northern, Central, and Southern; but it once was only one district, and also it used to have an Eastern district. Both of these courts are currently defunct. Note also that the Northern and Southern Districts of Illinois have both had their jurisdictional boundaries redrawn twice, in 1905 and again in 1978, and yet today's courts are still considered to be the same courts that were created in 1855. In that regard, the name is the most defining characteristic of a court. At the bottom of this page is a template listing every defunct U.S. federal court. Note that, in some sense, only the names are defunct; trials are still, of course, held today for every single area of jurisdiction which once was covered by any of these defunct courts, but they are held in a court with a different name.[3][4]
