The Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit is the appeals court that has jurisdiction, or legal power, to review cases decided by less powerful courts in the 1st Circuit. These less powerful courts are called United States district courts. They are federal trial courts. If someone wants to appeal a decision that one of these courts made, they would have to appeal to the Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit.
These are the United States District Courts that are in the 1st Circuit:
The Court is based at the John Joseph Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts.
The First Circuit is the smallest of the thirteen United States courts of appeals. As of 2016, the Court has six full-time judges and six judges on senior status. Senior status is like being partly retired. Three of the Senior Judges do not hear any cases. The others may hear cases if they choose to.
Since he retired from the United States Supreme Court, Justice David Souter regularly sits on the First Circuit "by designation." This means he is a visiting judge who comes to hear cases at the First Circuit, to add his knowledge and experience.
The Court usually "sits" (meets at the Courthouse and hears cases) for one week a month, eleven months per year. Court sittings are held in the mornings, usually between 9:30 AM and 1:00 PM (EST). For one month out of the year either July or August the Court takes a summer break and does not meet.
This is the Court's normal schedule:
On March 3, 1891, the United States Congress created the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Congress approved two judgeships for the Court (it allowed two judges to sit on the Court).
On January 28, 1915, Congress passed a law that added the District of Puerto Rico to the First Circuit. The law said that the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit would hear appeals from Puerto Rico's district court.
Over time, Congress approved more full-time judgeships for the Court:
Zomi Baptist Church
The Zomi Baptist Church is a christian believer church. In India the Zomi Baptist Church (ZBC) was established in 1982.
The ZBC headquarters is at Champhai, India. In Myanmar the ZBC is known as ZBCM (Zomi Baptist Church in Myanmar). Nowadays the ZBC is also present in the United States (Tulsa) and other countries in the world.
Browder v. Gayle
Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707 (1956), was a case heard before a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on Montgomery and Alabama state bus segregation laws. The District Court ruled 2-1, with one dissenting, on June 5, 1956 that bus segregation was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment protections for equal treatment.
The state and city appealed, and the decision was upheld by the United States Supreme Court on November 13, 1956. A motion for clarification and for rehearing was denied on December 17, 1956.
About two months after the Montgomery Bus Boycott began, civil rights activists reconsidered the case of Claudette Colvin. She was a 15-year-old girl who had been the first person arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Black leaders had been looking for a test case to test the constitutionality of the segregation laws of the state of Alabama and the city of Montgomery. One of the attorneys, Clifford Durr, was concerned that an appeal of Mrs. Rosa Parks' case would get tied up in the Alabama state courts. They needed a way to get directly to the federal courts. Colvin and several others who were discriminated against on Montgomery busses, agreed to become plaintiffs in a federal civil action lawsuit, thus bypassing the Alabama court system. The bus company said segregation was valid on "privately owned busses" which operated according to the laws of the city and state.
On February 1, 1956, the case of "Browder v. Gayle" was filed in U.S. District Court. Browder was a Montgomery housewife; W. A. Gayle was the mayor of Montgomery.
On June 13, 1956, the District Court ruled that "the enforced segregation of black and white passengers on motor buses operating in the City of Montgomery violates the Constitution and laws of the United States," because the conditions deprived people of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court further enjoined the state of Alabama and city of Montgomery from continuing to operate segregated buses.
The case was not completed until it was heard later that year by the US Supreme Court, as the state and city appealed the decision. On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the District Court's ruling and ordered the state of Alabama (and Montgomery) to desegregate its buses. One month later on December 20, after Mayor Gayle was handed official written notice by federal marshals, the Montgomery buses were desegregated.
Grace Poe
Grace Poe (born September 3, 1968) is the adopted daughter of Filipino actors Susan Roces and Fernando Poe, Jr. She served as chairperson of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) from 2010 to 2012 and in the Philippine Senate since 2013.
Miriam Defensor Santiago
Miriam Defensor Santiago (born June 15, 1945, died September 29, 2016) is a Filipino politician, notable for having served in all three branches of the Philippines government – judicial, executive, and legislative.
Leni Robredo
Leni Robredo (born April 23, 1965) is a Filipina lawyer and politician. She is the 14th and current Vice President of the Philippines since June 30, 2016. She is serving under Rodrigo Duterte.
Robredo is the widow of the Philippines Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo. She served as Member of the House of Representatives from Camarines Sur's Third District. She is a member of the Liberal Party.
Risa Hontiveros
Risa Hontiveros (born February 24, 1966) is a Filipino socialist activist and journalist, who was the representative of Akbayan in the House of Representatives of the Philippines from 2004 to 2010. She is the older sister of journalists and television hosts Gringgay and Pia Hontiveros.
Leila de Lima
Leila de Lima (born August 27, 1959) is a Filipino lawyer. She was appointed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights on May 2008 and served until June 30, 2010 when she resigned and appointed by President Benigno Aquino III as Secretary of the Philippine Department of Justice. She resigned October 12, 2015 to focus on her candidacy for the Senate in the 2016 election.
Reconstruction Amendments
The Reconstruction Amendments are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, adopted between 1865 and 1870, the five years immediately following the Civil War. The amendments were important in carrying out the reconstruction of the southern states after the war. Many northern politicians saw them as changing the United States from a country that was (in Abraham Lincoln's words) "half slave and half free" to one in which the constitutionally guaranteed "blessings of liberty" would be extended to all the people, including the former slaves and their descendants.
The Thirteenth Amendment (proposed and ratified in 1865) abolished slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment (proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868) created the privileges and immunities clause, applicable to all citizens; and made the due process and equal protection clauses applicable to all persons. The Fifteenth Amendment, (proposed in 1869 and ratified in 1870) prohibits discrimination in voting rights of citizens on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."