Template talk:Infobox U.S. federal court/Archive 1

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Concern about presence of US Attorney

Latest comment: 9 years ago5 comments1 person in discussion

Here's a discussion from Nevermore27's talk page I'm moving here. It's my intent to revert the recent addition of US Attorney to this infobox, because a US Attorney is not part of, nor an attribute of, a federal district court. But I wanted to give people the opportunity to disagree and discuss. jhawkinson (talk) 19:09, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

prior discussion

Hi, Nevermore27! I see you recently editing a whole slew of district court articles with "(added U.S. Attorney to infobox)." Can you justify this? The United States Attorney for a district is not part of its Court. (It's often true that they have an office in the same building as the Court or Courthouse, but that is not the same thing.) My inclination is that these edits are incorrect and should be reverted, but I wanted to discuss it with you first. Thanks! (Or maybe we should talk about it somewhere else?) jhawkinson (talk) 22:57, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

My thought was that District Courts and U.S. Attorneys are assigned to exactly the same districts; they are coterminous. Any suit filed against the federal government in any district court will be defended by that district's U.S. Attorney or his/her office. Any suit filed by the government against a citizen in a particular district will be prosecuted by that district's U.S. Attorney. While you are correct they are not the same office, they are inextricably linked. Many if not most of the pages for the Courts already list the U.S. Attorney. I just thought it would be better if they were included in the infobox.

They are indeed coterminous. I'm not sure it's true that any suit against the government will be defended by that district's US Attorney; while an AUSA almost always enters an appearance, it's fairly common for lead counsel to be from other parts of the DOJ. In any event, they are linked, but not inextricably. The links are quite "extricable" -- they are well-defined and breakable. I agree that some pages list the US Attorney. But that doesn't mean the US Attorney is an attribute of the Court, which is what placement in the Infobox implies. So, I guess...I am not convinced. But we should probably seek another opinion? I suppose perhaps on Template talk:Infobox U.S. district court with a referral from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law? Do you have other suggestions on how to resolve this, or a more convincing argument, or a better choice of venue for the discussion? Thanks. jhawkinson (talk) 07:21, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I can't come up with a different argument that could convince you, but I agree it's not going to be decided by you and I alone.

Well, you may be more optimistic than I. It could well be that no one else is interested, in which case it would be decided by you and I. In the absence of better venue suggestions I suppose I'll write something up tomorrow (US/Eastern). Incidently, Ibrahim v. Department of Homeland et al (3:06-cv-00545 in cand) appears to be an example of a suit against the federal government with no appearance by the local USA (though they were summonsed), but only by some DOJ folks from DC. Not that it really matters. jhawkinson (talk) 07:37, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Reverted. jhawkinson (talk) 18:54, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Multiple locations

Latest comment: 5 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Can the location parameter be changed to allow a list of locations instead of just one? Almost none of the official websites of the district courts that meet in multiple locations list any one courthouse as being the "main" one. (I'd make this change myself but I'm unsure of what the best way to do it is, as I have very little experience editing templates.) Skiasaurus (/ˌskiːəˈsɔːrəs/) 16:07, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

@Skiasaurus: Reviving this discussion. How do you propose this would look? Ergo Sum 02:49, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Ergo Sum: Never mind. It appears that someone else has already found and implemented (on every district court page I've checked, at least) a much more elegant solution than any I had in mind. (See, for example, United States District Court for the Northern District of California). Skiasaurus (/ˌskiːəˈsɔːrəs/) 15:36, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

@Skiasaurus: Yep, that was me. This template is now defunct and has been replaced by {{Infobox U.S. federal court}}. Ergo Sum 16:45, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Allow for custom name

Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

There are some historical U.S. district courts whose name is not in the format of "United States District Court for the..." (like the United States Court for China). This infobox should be able to accommodate for them, since they are not territorial courts. Therefore, I have put the following proposal in the sandbox: create a custom name parameter that would allow an editor to enter any text where the court name goes. The proposal also involves removing the parentheses that enclose the abbreviation unless the abbreviation parameter is used. This is because some courts, e.g. Court for China, do not have abbreviations. Ergo Sum 02:44, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Done Ergo Sum 14:58, 18 June 2018 (UTC)