When the circuit courts of appeals were created in 1891, the District of Columbia was not included in a judicial circuit and lacked a federal court of appeals. The District’s lone federal court was the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, which exercised the same jurisdiction as the U.S. district courts and U.S. circuit courts as well as local jurisdiction. In 1893, Congress created the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia and therefore repealed the circuit court jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. An act of 1938 declared that the District of Columbia was to be considered a judicial circuit for the purpose of allotting justices of the Supreme Court to duties in the circuits, and ten years later the court was renamed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
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