Eastern District of California

The Eastern District of California, headquartered in Sacramento with additional courthouses in Fresno and Bakersfield, covers the vast Central Valley and Sierra Nevada region. Despite having only six authorized judgeships, the district carries one of the heaviest per-judge caseloads in the nation, driven by an enormous volume of prisoner civil-rights habeas petitions from California's many state prisons. The district is also a leading venue for agricultural water-rights and Endangered Species Act litigation.