United States territorial court

[1] The U.S. Supreme Court case Nguyen v. United States, 539 U.S. 69 (2003), presented the question of whether a panel of the Court of Appeals consisting of two Article III judges and one Article IV judge had the authority to decide petitioners' appeals.

Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands have their own courts which hear cases involving commonwealth law.

In 1961 Congress legislated to provide Puerto Rico with a judicial state-federal court structure equal to that of States.

It is created by virtue of the sovereign congressional faculty, granted under Article 4, §3, of the Constitution, of making all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory belonging to the United States.

In addition in 1984 one of the judges of the federal district court, Chief Judge Juan R. Torruella, a native of the island, was appointed to serve in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit with jurisdiction over Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and New Hampshire.

This marks the first and only occasion in United States history in which Congress established an Article III Court in a territory other than the District of Columbia.

Moreover, federal litigants in Puerto Rico should not be denied the benefit of judges made independent by life tenure from the pressures of those who might influence his chances of reappointment, which benefits the Constitution guarantees to the litigants in all other Federal Courts.

[8] Between 1966 and 2008, eighteen Article III judges were appointed to sit in the District of Puerto Rico.