| Court Type: | district |
| Court Name: | United States District Court for the District of Delaware |
| Abbreviation: | D. Del. |
| Seal Size: | 150 |
| Map Image Name: | Delaware Locator Map.PNG |
| Map Image Width: | 150 |
| Location: | Wilmington |
| Appeals To: | Third Circuit |
| Established: | September 24, 1789 |
| Judges Assigned: | 4 |
| Chief: | Colm Connolly |
| Us Attorney: | David C. Weiss |
| Us Marshal: | Michael C. McGowan |
The United States District Court for the District of Delaware (in case citations, D. Del.) is the Federal district court having jurisdiction over the entire state of Delaware. The Court sits in Wilmington.
Because Delaware is the state of incorporation for most major U.S. corporations, the District of Delaware hears and tries many patent and other complex commercial disputes that must be heard in federal court for diversity of citizenship reasons, and hears many appeals from bankruptcy disputes which are filed with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
Appeals from the Court are heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which sits in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are appealed to the Federal Circuit).
The current United States attorney for the District of Delaware is David C. Weiss since January 22, 2018.
The court was one of the original 13 courts established by the Judiciary Act of 1789,, on September 24, 1789. From its establishment until 1946, the court had a single judge. A temporary additional judgeship was authorized on July 24, 1946, by, and was made permanent on September 5, 1950, by . A third judge was authorized on February 10, 1954, by, and a fourth on July 10, 1984, by .
Source: [1]
| U.S. Attorney | Term Started | Term Ended | Presidents served under | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| George Read II | 1789 | 1816 | George Washington and John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison | ||
| George Read III | 1816 | 1836 | James Monroe, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson | ||
| James A. Bayard Jr. | 1837 | 1843 | Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, and John Tyler | ||
| William Horsey Rogers | 1843 | 1849 | John Tyler and James K. Polk | ||
| Perry Sheward Johnson | 1849 | 1853 | Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore | ||
| Thomas F. Bayard | 1853 | 1855 | Franklin Pierce | ||
| Daniel Moore Bates | 1855 | 1861 | Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan | ||
| Edward Green Bradford | 1861 | 1866 | Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson | ||
| John Lockwood Pratt | 1866 | 1869 | Andrew Johnson | ||
| Anthony Higgins | 1869 | 1876 | Ulysses S. Grant | ||
| William Corbit Spruance | 1876 | 1880 | Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes | ||
| John Cunningham Patterson | 1880 | 1888 | Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, and Grover Cleveland | ||
| Alexander Bradshaw Cooper | 1888 | 1891 | Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison | ||
| Beniah Watson | 1891 | 1894 | Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland | ||
| Lewis Cass Vandergrift | 1894 | 1899 | Grover Cleveland and William McKinley | ||
| William Michael Byrne | 1899 | 1903 | |||
| John Percy Nields | 1903 | 1916 | Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson | ||
| Charles F. Curley | 1916 | 1920 | Woodrow Wilson | ||
| James H. Hughes, Jr. | 1920 | 1924 | Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge | ||
| David J. Reinhardt | 1924 | 1927 | Calvin Coolidge | ||
| Leonard E. Wales | 1927 | 1935 | Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt | ||
| John J. Morris, Jr. | 1935 | 1939 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | ||
| Charles Stewart Lynch | 1939 | 1944 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | ||
| John J. Morris, Jr. | 1944 | 1948 | Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman | ||
| William Marvel | 1948 | 1953 | Harry Truman | ||
| Leonard G. Hagner | 1953 | 1961 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | ||
| Alexander Greenfield[2] | 1961 | 1969 | |||
| F. L. Peter Stone | 1969 | 1973 | Richard Nixon | ||
| Ralph F. Keil | 1973 | 1975 | Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford | ||
| W. Laird Stabler Jr. | 1975 | 1977 | Gerald Ford | ||
| James W. Garvin, Jr. | 1977 | 1981 | |||
| Joseph James Farnan Jr. | 1981 | 1985 | Ronald Reagan | ||
| William C. Carpenter, Jr. | 1985 | 1993 | |||
| Gregory M. Sleet | 1993 | 1998 | Bill Clinton | ||
| Carl Schnee | 1999 | 2001 | Bill Clinton | ||
| Colm Connolly | 2001 | 2009 | George W. Bush | ||
| Charles Oberly | 2010 | 2018 | Barack Obama and Donald Trump | ||
| David C. Weiss | 2018 | present | Donald Trump and Joe Biden | ||