3.
Act of March 2, 1891, a. k. a. Evarts Act, 26 Stat. 827. The Evarts Act shifted the appellate caseload burden from the Supreme Court to new courts of appeals, and in so doing, made the federal district courts the court system's primary trial courts. It created a new court, the circuit court of appeals, with one for each of the nine circuits (now twelve). Each court consisted, in effect, of two circuit judges and a district judge. It provided direct Supreme Court review of right from the district courts in some categories of cases and from circuit courts of appeal in others. It routed all other cases--notably criminal, diversity, admiralty, and revenue and patent cases--to the courts of appeals for final disposition. The appellate court could certify questions to the Supreme Court, or the Supreme Court could grant review by certiorari. Deference to tradition temporarily spared the old circuit courts, but the Act abolished their appellate jurisdiction. Until the courts themselves were abolished by the Judicial Act of March 3, 1911, § 301, 36 Stat. 1087, 1169, the nation still had two separate federal trial courts. Neither did the Act abolish the justices' circuit riding, but rather made it optional, thus quietly burying this anachronism in similar deference to tradition. The important legacy today of justices' circuit riding is 28 U.S.C. §42, which directs the Court to allot its members "as
circuit justices."
