General Information

In the interest of informing the public, the United States District, District Court for the Northern Marianas Islands welcomes media coverage of legal matters coming before the court.

In almost all cases, oral arguments before an appellate panel are open to the press and public. In certain high-profile cases, the court may reserve courtroom seating for the media. Reporters should contact the Court to determine whether reserve seating is available.

The District Court for the Northern Marianas Islands does not allow still and video cameras and audio recorders in the courtroom for purposes of reporting on the proceeding. Rules pertaining to use of these and other electronic devices (cell phones, tablets, laptops, etc.) are explained in the court’s General Order 17-00004, page 90.

If a case is being prosecuted by a U.S. attorney, that attorney’s office will often have a designated public relations contact who can provide up-to-date information.

The Federal Courts

There are local, state and federal court systems. They each have completely separate personnel, administration and facilities, but cases may move from one system to another depending on a variety of legal circumstances. We will only be talking about the federal court system in these pages.

The Federal Courts have three main levels: District Courts (the trial court), Circuit Courts which are the first level of appeal, and the Supreme Court of the United States, the final level of appeal in the federal system. There are 94 district courts, 13 circuit courts, and one Supreme Court in the U.S.  For more information, visit the Introduction to the Federal Courts page.  

U.S. District Courts have jurisdiction to hear nearly all categories of federal cases, including both civil and criminal matters. Two territories of the United States, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, have U.S. District Courts that hear federal cases, including bankruptcy cases. More information about the federal courts is available on the U.S. Courts website.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is an appellate court that reviews the procedures and the decisions to make sure that the proceedings were fair and that the proper law was applied correctly in the trial courts within the 15 judicial districts that comprise the Ninth Circuit.

The Office of the Circuit Executive (OCE) was created by statute to provide professional administrative staffing to circuit councils. The OCE provides administrative support to the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit and its various committees. It also provides direct services to all 64 judicial court units in the circuit.

The District Court for the Northern Marianas Islands courthouse is located in Saipan. The District Court for the Northern Marianas Islands is currently authorized one district judge and one half-time magistrate judge. Active and senior judges hear civil and criminal cases that fall under federal law. Decisions are appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. 

Following a final appellate court ruling, parties to the case can then petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling. At its discretion, and within the certain guidelines established by Congress, the Supreme Court may grant or deny the petition. The court hears a small percentage of cases it is asked to review each year. If the petition to review the ruling is denied, then the appellate court ruling stands.

Links to Pacer Records System

Public Access to Court Electronic Records, or PACER, is the judiciary’s electronic method of providing access to court dockets and to copies of documents filed with the court. You may register for PACER online. There is no registration fee but there is an established user fee to be collected for access to PACER; however, if usage in a quarter is $30 or less, PACER fees are waived. For more information on PACER fees, and circumstances in which PACER use is free, see “PACER Pricing: How fees work.”

Via PACER, you can examine the docket for a particular case, which will provide the names of all parties, the names and contact information for the attorneys of record and an itemization of every document filed in the case by name, filer and date. Case documents are accessible from the docket via hyperlinks.

PACER provides online access to dockets (case information) for a fee of $0.10 per page, though the first $30 of charges per quarter per user are waived. Register here.

How to register for alerts via CM/ECF

Journalists and interested members of the public can register for Special Mailing Group (SMG) accounts within the court's electronic filing system to be kept abreast of developments in a case.

Once you have a CM/ECF account, you can sign up for Notices of Electronic Filing (“NEFs”) in particular cases. Learn how to sign up for NEFs.

Once you have registered for NEFs in a particular case, you will receive notification via email that a document is available to be viewed electronically via PACER.

NEFs will tell you:

• Who filed the document
• Who was served with electronic (email) notice of the filing electronically
• Date and time of filing
• Document(s) title(s)
• Docket text associated with the document(s)
• On which party’s behalf the document was submitted
• A hyperlink to open an Adobe PDF copy of the document. (If you open the hyperlink, you will be prompted to log into PACER to view/download the document.)

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are answers to a few of the often-asked questions from media representatives