So
there I was, working on my presentation about the arms of the United States of
America and cruising around the internet looking for examples of their use and,
working for lawyers like I do, I thought of the many divisions of the United
States District Courts around the country.
Now,
these courts are, as you could reasonably assume from their names, a part of
the United States, that is to say, the federal, judiciary system. They are, as Wikipedia notes, “the general
trial courts of the United States federal court system.” That is to say, they are not your basic local
or even state courts. The U.S. District
Courts, of which there may be as few as one or as many as four in each state
(for example, in the State of Texas there are four U.S. District Court
divisions: the Northern District, the Eastern District, the Southern District,
and the Western District, each of which may have branches in more than one city),
are subordinate to the nine United States Circuit Courts of Appeal, which in
turn are subordinate to the Supreme Court of the United States.
It
is true that in cases which are originally filed in a state court which have a
federal or constitutional question may be removed to, or appealed to, the
appropriate U.S. District Court. But
they are a part of the federal system, and not a part of any state judicial
system.
All
that said as a very brief background, in perusing the websites of a number of
U.S. District Courts, I found that they use – as they should – the arms of the
United States (some in monochrome, some in color), or some other appropriate
insignia of their federal jurisdiction, such as the flag of the U.S. or white
stars on a blue and red background and so on, or no such insignia at all. Below are two such examples from the United
States District Courts for the Northern and Western Districts of Oklahoma (the
state just to the immediate north of Texas where I live).
The
use of the arms of the U.S. in the Northern District is fairly typical of that
use in many of the U.S. District Courts that I saw.
And
while it’s a less common usage, I really like the placement of the achievement
of arms of the U.S. on an outline of the State of Oklahoma as used by the
Western District, combining as it does their federal jurisdiction and their
physical location in the State of Oklahoma.
But
I found an exception to those uses of the arms of the United States. The website of the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma uses the Great Seal of the … wait for
it … State of Oklahoma.
They
are using the official emblem of an entity of which they are not a
subdivision. Yes, they are physically
located in the State of Oklahoma, but they are not a part of the State
of Oklahoma. (The State has its own
district courts, 77 of them according to Wikipedia, which may, and probably do,
use the Great Seal of the State as appropriate.) The United States District Court is a part of
the federal judiciary, whose judges are not elected by the people of the State
of Oklahoma, and it should not be using the seal of that state for its
insignia.
If
this were occurring in Scotland (and if I lived there!), I’d write the
Procurator Fiscal of the Court of the Lord Lyon about this very public
usurpation of arms. But it’s not (and I
don’t), and there really is no way to enforce the correct use of heraldry here
in the United States, much less in the State of Oklahoma. Indeed, they probably assume that because
they are physically situated in the state, that it is perfectly appropriate for
them to use the Great Seal of that state.
They’re wrong, but there is little that I can do about it. Except to sit here, appalled and frustrated,
and rail about it to you.
Okay,
rant over. I’ll go back to my books and
find some more heraldry being used appropriately.
