The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (in

case citation Case citation is a system used by legal professionals to identify past court case decisions, either in series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a neutral style that identifies a decision regardless of where it is reported. Case c ...

s, N.D. Ill.) is the federal trial-level court with jurisdiction over the northern counties of Illinois. Appeals from the Northern District of Illinois are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the

Tucker Act The Tucker Act (March 3, 1887, ch. 359, , ) is a federal statute of the United States by which the United States government has waived its sovereign immunity with respect to certain lawsuits. The Tucker Act may be divided into the "Big" Tucker A ...

, which are appealed to the

Federal Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (in case citations, Fed. Cir. or C.A.F.C.) is a United States court of appeals that has special appellate jurisdiction over certain types of specialized cases in the U.S. federal court ...

). The court is divided into two geographical divisions: The eastern division includes

Cook Cook or The Cook may refer to: Food preparation * Cooking, the preparation of food * Cook (domestic worker), a household staff member who prepares food * Cook (professional), an individual who prepares food for consumption in the food industry * ...

, DuPage, McHenry, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, La Salle, Lake, and Will counties. Its sessions are held in Chicago and Wheaton. The western division includes Boone, Carroll, De Kalb, Jo Daviess, Lee, Ogle, Stephenson, Whiteside, and

Winnebago Winnebago can refer to: * The exonym of the Ho-Chunk tribe of Native North Americans with reservations in Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin ** Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, a federally recognized tribe group in the state ** The Winnebago language of the ...

. Its sessions are held in Freeport and Rockford. The United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois represents the United States in civil and criminal litigation in the court. The current United States Attorney is John R. Lausch Jr. since November 22, 2017.

History

The

United States District Court for the District of Illinois The following are former United States district courts, which ceased to exist because they were subdivided into smaller units. With the exception of California, each of these courts initially covered an entire U.S. state, and was subdivided as the ...

was established by a statute passed by the United States Congress on March 3, 1819, .Asbury Dickens, ''A Synoptical Index to the Laws and Treaties of the United States of America'' (1852), p. 393.U.S. District Courts of Illinois, Legislative history
''

Federal Judicial Center The Federal Judicial Center is the education and research agency of the United States federal courts. It was established by in 1967, at the recommendation of the Judicial Conference of the United States. According to , the main areas of respon ...

''. The act established a single office for a judge to preside over the court. Initially, the court was not within any existing judicial circuit, and appeals from the court were taken directly to the United States Supreme Court. In 1837, Congress created the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, placing it in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and giving it jurisdiction over the District of Illinois, . The Northern District itself was created by a statute passed on February 13, 1855, , which subdivided the District of Illinois into the Northern and the

Southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

Districts. The boundaries of the District and the seats of the courts were set forth in the statute: The district has since been re-organized several times. The

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Illinois The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Illinois (in case citations, E.D. Ill.) is a former federal district court for the state of Illinois. The court was established on March 3, 1905, by 33 Stat. 992. The Northern and Sou ...

was created on March 3, 1905, by , by splitting counties out of the Northern and Southern Districts. It was later eliminated in a reorganization on October 2, 1978, which replaced it with a

Central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known a ...

District, , formed primarily from parts of the Southern District, and returning some counties to the Northern District. The Northern District of Illinois, which contains the entire

Chicago metropolitan area The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hint ...

, accounts for 1,531 of the 1,828 public corruption convictions in the state between 1976 and 2012, almost 84%, also making it the federal district with the most public corruption convictions in the nation between 1976 and 2012.

Cases

It is one of the busiest federal trial courts in the nation. Famous cases have included those of

Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the ...

and the

Chicago Eight The Chicago Seven, originally the Chicago Eight and also known as the Conspiracy Eight or Conspiracy Seven, were seven defendants—Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Lee Weiner—charged by ...

Current judges

Vacancies and pending nominations

Former judges

Chief judges

Succession of seats

List of U.S. Attorneys since 1857

* Augustus M. Herrington, 1857–1858 * Henry S. Fitch, 1858–1861 * Edwin C. Larned, 1861 * Joseph O. Glover, 1869 * Mark Bangs, 1875–1879 * Joseph B. Seake, 1879–1884 * Richard S. Tuthill, 1884–1886 * William G. Ewing, 1886–1890 * Thomas E. Milchrist, 1891–1893 * Sherwood Dixon, 1893–1894 *

John C. Black John Charles Black (January 27, 1839 – August 17, 1915) was a Democratic U.S. Congressman from Illinois. He received the Medal of Honor for his actions as a Union Army lieutenant colonel and regimental commander at the Battle of Prairie Grove ...

, 1895–1899 * Solomon H. Bethea, 1899–1905 * Charles B. Morrison, 1905–1906 * Edwin W. Sims, 1906–1911 *

James Herbert Wilkerson James Herbert Wilkerson (December 11, 1869 – September 30, 1948) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Education and career Born in Savannah, Missouri, Wilkerson rece ...

, 1911–1914 * Charles F. Clyne, 1914–1922 * Edwin A. Olson, 1922–1927 *

George E. Q. Johnson George E. Q. Johnson (July 11, 1874 – September 19, 1949) was a United States Attorney in Chicago, Illinois who won tax evasion convictions of Al Capone and several of his associates. He briefly served as a United States district judge of the ...

, 1927–1931 *

Dwight H. Green Dwight Herbert Green (January 9, 1897 – February 20, 1958) was an American politician who served as the 30th Governor of the US state of Illinois, serving from 1941 to 1949. From childhood to early adulthood Green was born in Ligonier, No ...

, 1931–1935 * Michael L. Igoe, 1935–1938 * William Joseph Campbell, 1938–1940 * J. Albert Woll, 1940–1947 *

Otto Kerner Jr. Otto Kerner Jr. (August 15, 1908 – May 9, 1976) was an American jurist and politician who served as the 33rd governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968 and a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circui ...

, 1947–1954 * Irwin N. Cohen, 1954 * Robert Tieken, 1954–1961 * James P. O'Brien, 1961–1963 * Frank E. McDonald, 1963–1964 *

Edward Hanrahan Edward Vincent Hanrahan (March 11, 1921 – June 9, 2009) was an American attorney and politician who served as Cook County State's Attorney from 1968 to 1972. Hanrahan had been a prospective successor to Mayor of Chicago Richard J. Daley. ...

, 1964–1968 *

Tom Foran Thomas Aquinas Foran (January 11, 1924 – August 6, 2000) was a United States Attorney best known as the chief prosecutor in the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial in which seven defendants, including Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, David Dellinger, Re ...

, 1968–1970 * William J. Bauer, 1970–1971 *

James R. Thompson James Robert Thompson Jr. (May 8, 1936 – August 14, 2020), also known as Big Jim Thompson, was an American attorney and politician who served as the 37th governor of Illinois from 1977 to 1991. A moderate Republican who sometimes took more ...

, 1971–1975 *

Samuel K. Skinner Samuel Knox Skinner (born June 10, 1938) is an American politician, lawyer, and businessman. Skinner served as U.S. Secretary of Transportation and White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush. Prior to the Bush administration ...

, 1975–1977 * Thomas P. Sullivan, 1977–1981 * Gregory C. Jones, 1981 * Dan K. Webb, 1981–1985 * Anton R. Valukas, 1985–1989 * Ira A. Raphaelson, 1989–1990 * Fred Foreman, 1990–1993 * Michael J. Shepard, 1993 * Jim Burns, 1993–1997 * Scott R. Lassar, 1997–2001 *

Patrick Fitzgerald Patrick J. Fitzgerald (born December 22, 1960) is an American lawyer and partner at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom since October 2012. For more than a decade, until June 30, 2012, Fitzgerald was the United States Attorney ...

, 2001–2012 * Gary S. Shapiro, 2012–2013 *

Zachary T. Fardon Zachary Thomas Fardon (born 1966) served as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. He began serving as the U.S. Attorney in Chicago on October 23, 2013, after President Obama signed his commission. He resigned on Marc ...

, 2013–2017 * Joel R. Levin, 2017 * John R. Lausch Jr., 2017–present

References

External links

*
United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Official Website

Office of Special Counsel, Northern District of Illinois
{{DEFAULTSORT:United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Illinois, Northern District Organizations based in Illinois 1855 establishments in Illinois Chicago Rockford, Illinois Courthouses in Illinois Courts and tribunals established in 1855