Why your case is in federal court, not state court
If federal agents arrested you in San Diego County, or a grand jury in San Diego named you in an indictment, your case will be heard in a United States district court, not a California state courthouse. The reason is one short statute, which provides:
"The district courts of the United States shall have original jurisdiction, exclusive of the courts of the States, of all offenses against the laws of the United States."
The word exclusive does the work. When the charge is a violation of federal law, no state court shares the case. The prosecution is brought by the United States Attorney's Office, the judge is a federal district judge, and sentencing runs under federal law. Our Southern District of California page maps the whole district, and our federal criminal process hub walks through each stage from arrest to sentencing.
A caution that applies to every page on this site. Penalties shown here are statutory maximums or guideline ranges, never predictions about any one person. The facts of a case change everything.
The Southern District, and why your hearing is in San Diego
Congress drew this district smaller than the others in California. The statute provides:
"(d) The Southern District comprises the counties of Imperial and San Diego."
And it provides:
"Court for the Southern District shall be held at San Diego."
That pair of sentences answers a common confusion. Only two counties feed this court, and hearings happen at San Diego. There are no outlying divisions to sort out. If your case comes from conduct in San Diego County, your hearings happen downtown. If it comes from Imperial County, your papers may instead direct you to the El Centro courthouse described on our El Centro page. Check the caption of your papers before you drive anywhere, because appearing at the wrong building on the morning of a hearing is a preventable problem.
Two courthouses on West Broadway, a few blocks apart
Downtown San Diego has two federal courthouses, and the court location page names both. The Edward J. Schwartz United States Courthouse sits at 221 West Broadway, San Diego, CA 92101. The James M. Carter and Judith N. Keep United States Courthouse sits at 333 West Broadway, San Diego, CA 92101. The court lists (619) 557-5600 as the contact number for both buildings, and both keep business hours of Monday to Friday from 7am to 6pm.
The Clerk's Office sits in the Carter-Keep building in Suite 420, with business hours of Monday to Friday from 8:30am to 4:30pm. That is the window for filings and file review, so a trip for paperwork follows different hours than a trip for a hearing. The jury assembly room is also in the Carter-Keep building, in Suite 210, which matters if you receive a jury summons rather than a hearing notice.
Your papers should tell you which building to enter, including the courtroom or suite number. If they do not, or if the notice is unclear, call the number above rather than guessing. The buildings stand close together on the same street, but each has its own security line and elevators, and time spent in the wrong line is time you do not get back.
Imperial County goes to El Centro
The second half of the district has its own building. The El Centro United States Courthouse sits at 2003 West Adams Avenue, Suite 220, El Centro, CA 92243, with business hours of Monday to Friday from 8:30am to 4:30pm and a contact number of (760) 339-4242. The United States Attorney's Office keeps its main office in San Diego and a branch office in El Centro, matching the two counties of the district.
This matters for travel planning. El Centro sits in the Imperial Valley near the Arizona line and the Mexican border, a long drive from downtown San Diego. If your notice names El Centro, do not assume you can handle it in San Diego. Go where the notice says, and allow time for the desert drive.
Getting through the door on your court date
Plan for a federal building, not an ordinary errand downtown. Bring a photo ID and every page of the summons, indictment or notice you received, and arrive early enough to clear screening with time left to find your courtroom. Weapons, cameras and recording devices are restricted in federal courthouses, so leave anything questionable behind. The court notes that the downtown courthouses are reachable by trolley and bus, that metered spaces on the courthouse block are limited, and that public lots sit nearby, so check transit and parking the night before rather than assuming street parking downtown will cooperate. If you were arrested and released with a date to appear, read our page on federal arrest before that date so the first appearance does not surprise you.
Who prosecutes a San Diego federal case
The court and the prosecution are separate. The judge decides motions, runs the trial and imposes sentence. The charges are brought by the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California, whose main office sits in San Diego with a branch office in El Centro. The office serves only the two counties of the district. The agents who investigated the case usually report into the same district. No attorney, judge, prosecutor or client is named anywhere on this page, and that is deliberate. What matters is the office and the process, not any one person.
What happens first, and what comes after
The first decisions in a federal case come fast. At the first appearance the judge addresses release, and detention fights are litigated under the standards explained on our detention hearings page. If the case proceeds by indictment, read our indictment page. Sentencing, if it comes to that, runs under federal law described on our federal sentencing page. And if the trial court gets the law wrong, the appeal goes to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the circuit Congress assigned to California, since the courts of appeals have jurisdiction of appeals from final decisions of the district courts. Appeals run on strict deadlines measured from the judgment, so read our federal appeals page early rather than after time has run.