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Federal Courts in Nevada: the District Court and the Ninth Circuit

Nevada has exactly one federal trial court: the United States District Court for the District of Nevada, which covers the whole state from courthouses in Las Vegas and Reno. Its decisions can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, headquartered in San Francisco, and from there review can be sought in the U.S. Supreme Court. This federal ladder runs alongside — not above — Nevada’s state courts.

By Ask Nevada Law Editorial · Updated

The U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada

The federal judiciary divides the country into 94 district courts; Nevada is a single district covering the entire state. The court lists two courthouses: the Lloyd D. George Federal Courthouse at 333 Las Vegas Blvd. South in Las Vegas, and the Bruce R. Thompson Federal Courthouse at 400 S. Virginia St. in Reno. Like Nevada’s state district courts, it is a trial court — the place where federal cases are filed, heard, and decided in the first instance.

What federal courts hear — and what stays in state court

Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction: as the federal judiciary puts it, they hear cases over which they have “jurisdiction granted by the Constitution or Congress.” On the civil side that means, chiefly, two doorways. The first is the federal question: cases involving the United States government, the U.S. Constitution, or other federal laws. The second is diversity of citizenship: disputes between parties not from the same state or country, where the claim meets a dollar threshold set by Congress. Federal courts also hear criminal prosecutions for violations of federal law, and bankruptcy cases belong to the federal system.

Everything else — most contract disputes, most personal-injury cases, divorce and custody, evictions, state-law crimes — is the business of Nevada’s state courts, described in how the Nevada court system works. The two systems handle different bodies of law in parallel; a case does not “graduate” from state court to federal court as it grows.

Appeals: the Ninth Circuit, then the U.S. Supreme Court

Appeals from the District of Nevada go to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit — one of the 13 federal appellate courts that sit below the U.S. Supreme Court. Established in 1891 and headquartered in San Francisco, the Ninth Circuit serves nine western states — Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington — plus Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Above it stands only the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the country.

This is also why Nevada has no state “circuit courts”: in Nevada, “circuit” refers to this federal appeals court, while the state’s own trial courts are organized into the 11 judicial districts shown on the judicial districts map.

The two ladders, side by side

The diagram below shows the federal track on the right, next to the Nevada state courts it runs parallel to.

Nevada state courts Federal courts Supreme Court of Nevada 7 justices · the state’s highest court Court of Appeals 3 judges · hears cases assigned by the Supreme Court assigns ≈ one-third of appeals District Courts 11 judicial districts · 90 judges Trial courts of general jurisdiction: felonies, family, juvenile, larger civil cases Hear appeals from justice & municipal courts appeals are filed with the Supreme Court Justice Courts Misdemeanors & traffic · small claims · evictions · civil claims of $15,000 or less · felony arraignments & preliminary hearings Municipal Courts Traffic & misdemeanor ordinance violations inside incorporated city limits appeal appeal U.S. Supreme Court Highest court in the United States Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals · based in San Francisco · covers Nevada & 8 other western states U.S. District Court District of Nevada · federal trial court · courthouses in Las Vegas & Reno appeal review
Nevada’s state courts (left) and the parallel federal courts (right). Appeals from the district courts are filed with the Nevada Supreme Court, which assigns roughly one-third of them to the Court of Appeals — the “deflective” model described by the Nevada Judiciary.

Text description of the diagram: Nevada’s state court system has three tiers. At the bottom, two courts of limited jurisdiction operate side by side: justice courts, which handle misdemeanors and traffic matters, small claims, evictions, other civil matters of $15,000 or less, and felony and gross misdemeanor arraignments and preliminary hearings; and municipal courts, which handle traffic and misdemeanor ordinance violations occurring within the limits of incorporated cities. Appeals from both go to the district courts. The district courts are the trial courts of general jurisdiction, organized into 11 judicial districts served by 90 judges, and they resolve criminal, civil, family, and juvenile matters. Appeals from the district courts are filed with the Supreme Court of Nevada, which has 7 justices. Under Nevada’s deflective model, the Supreme Court assigns roughly one-third of those appeals to the 3-judge Court of Appeals. Separately, the federal system in Nevada runs in parallel: the United States District Court for the District of Nevada, with courthouses in Las Vegas and Reno, is the federal trial court; its decisions can be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, headquartered in San Francisco; and the Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the country.