The United States District Court for the District of South Carolina (in case citations, D.S.C.) is the federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of South Carolina. Court is held in the cities of Aiken, Anderson, Beaufort, Charleston, Columbia, Florence, Greenville, and Spartanburg.
Appeals from the District of South Carolina are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are appealed to the Federal Circuit).
The United States attorney for the District of South Carolina represents the United States in civil and criminal litigation in the court. , the acting United States attorney is Bryan Stirling.
The District of South Carolina was one of the original 13 courts established by the Judiciary Act of 1789, , on September 24, 1789. It was subdivided into the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina and the United States District Court for the Western District of South Carolina Districts on February 21, 1823, by . The Eastern District was headquartered at Florence, and the Western District was headquartered in Greenville. The division was solely for the purposes of holding court â a single judge presided over both districts, and the act authorized no additional court staff.
In 1898 the United States Supreme Court held in Barrett v. United States that South Carolina legally constituted a single judicial district. Congress made another effort to subdivide the District on March 3, 1911, by and . South Carolina was again split into Eastern and the Western Districts, with one judgeship authorized to serve both districts, effective January 1, 1912. Congress finally authorized an additional judgeship for the Western District, and assigned the sitting judge exclusively to the Eastern District, on March 3, 1915, by . However, on October 7, 1965, by , South Carolina was reorganized as a single judicial district with four judgeships authorized for the district court. It has since remained a single District.
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The U.S. Attorney for South Carolina is the chief law enforcement officer for the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. Between 1918 and 1968, the district was separated into western and eastern districts of South Carolina and then reunited.