Talk:District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands

Move
According to, this court is named the "District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands", not the "United States District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands". Therefore, the name of this article should be changed.

— DLJessup (talk) 23:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The external link on the article page (the court's website) seems to use United States as part of the name, so I'm a bit confused. When the U.S. legal code mentions any state based district court, does it include U.S. in the title?  NoSeptember  01:05, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes. According to :

(a) There shall be in each judicial district a district court which shall be a court of record known as the United States District Court for the district.

— DLJessup (talk) 04:08, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
 * So why wouldn't apply to any future courts that are set up, such as the CNMI court? I don't know if we can assume that the lack of a mention of U.S. in  means that they intended the name to be different from the others, and the website uses U.S. as part of the title at least three times. I don't know the right answer, but I think a case can be made either way.  NoSeptember  10:34, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Yerg. I've gone through the DCNMI's official website, and you're right: somebody went to a lot of trouble to make sure that the court was consistently referred to as the "United States District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands". I've written up some evidence from research below. Let me know what you think. Sorry if its a bit haphazard....

I'm a little confused about the "apply to any future courts". Unlike Statutes at Law, which is set up chronologically, the U.S.C. is organized topically, and, when Congress passes new laws, they delete some of the text of the U.S.C. and add new text as well.

28 U.S.C. 132 reads, "There shall be in each judicial district…" 28 U.S.C. §§81–131 has just defined all of the judicial districts of the United States, which comprise the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico; Guam, the Virgin Islands, and NMI are all omitted. §133 reiterates the list of the "several judicial districts", again omitting Guam, VI, and NMI, and §134 states that "The district judges shall hold office during good behavior." This is important, because it indicates the courts under discussion are Article III courts.

Now then, switching back to 48 U.S.C. §1821, it states that the judges of the District Court of the Northern Mariana Islands "shall hold office for the term of ten years and until his successor is chosen and qualified". In other words, the DC of the NMI is an Article I court and can't be a subject of 28 U.S.C.

Another piece of evidence can be obtained by looking at 48 U.S.C. §1424 and 48 U.S.C. §1611 which designate the names of the "District Court of Guam" and the "District Court of the Virgin Islands". I don't think it's a coincidence that all three of the territorial district courts omit the "United States" from their name. The District Court of Guam's website refers to itself by the name "District Court of Guam". The the District Court of the Virgin Islands refers to itself by several different names, such as "District Court of the United States Virgin Islands", "District Court of the Virgin Islands", and "U.S. District Court for the Virgin Islands", but the Chief Judge refers to the court as the "District Court of the Virgin Islands". This is further evidence that the webmasters of the district courts may be careless about the exact name of their court.

— DLJessup (talk) 00:57, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
 * That seems like a reasonable reading of the code. I am fine with the page move.  I agree that the webmasters are not always precise with the facts.   NoSeptember  01:51, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

SPN Lifer (talk) 03:27, 9 July 2010 (UTC) This was no mere error by court webmasters, but the personal preference of Chief Judge Emeritus Munson. Therefore, the court staff and all attorneys practicing before him carried out his desires. However, as shown above, it is incorrect as a matter of law. The title of this webpage entry should be modified by deleting "United_States_" from the beginning of the URL, and "United States" from the Title itself, as recommended by DLJessup almost five years ago. I do not see the "move" button (to the right of the "edit this page" button) to move the page in this fashion.

It has been over five years, but I finally moved the damn page to reflect consensus. :) Safiel (talk) 17:10, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20091220034132/http://www.saipantribune.com:80/newsstory.aspx?newsID=95532&cat=1 to http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=1&newsID=95532
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120614121926/http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=1&newsID=111474 to http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=1&newsID=111474

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