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Data · Federal criminal cases

Federal criminal cases, district by district

How many people are charged in each federal district court every year, with what, and how that has moved over almost a decade. We read the tables the federal courts publish twice a year, keep every offense column, add the felony and misdemeanor split, and publish a period only when the districts add up to the national total and every district matches a second court table.

Checked October 28, 2026 · CC BY 4.0 · Not legal advice

What is in this dataset?

Criminal defendants whose cases were opened in the 94 federal district courts, counted from the Statistical Tables for the Federal Judiciary that the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts publishes for each 12-month period ending June 30 and December 31. Each record gives one district, one state with more than one district, or the whole country, for one period: the defendants commenced (transfers between districts left out), split by offense into nineteen columns and ten offense groups, with drug, immigration (illegal reentry shown on its own), firearms, fraud, sex offenses and traffic picked out, the felony, Class A misdemeanor and petty-offense split from Table D-1, and the same period a year earlier. National records add Table D-2's detail of about a hundred offenses, from bank robbery and health-care fraud to drunk driving on federal land. Every period's districts add up to the national total printed by the Courts, and every district ties to Table D-1.

Use it to size the federal criminal-defense market where a firm practises: how many people are charged in each federal district each year, with what (drug trafficking, illegal reentry, gun possession, fraud, child exploitation, traffic on federal land), how many face a felony, and whether the count is rising. Look up a state to get every district in it, compare up to ten states, or search for a district by name. Federal cases are a small share of all criminal cases, so read it alongside state court filings.

Records
2,023
Look up by
56
state or territory
Primary source
2,023

The letters are explained in what P, S, D and U mean.

Where does the data come from?

The Courts' Excel files for Tables D-1, D-2 and D-3 are read with the standard library and parsed by their header labels. A period is published only when Table D-3's 94 districts add up to its Total row in every column, every circuit row equals its districts, every row's offense columns add up to its total, Table D-2's offense groups add up to its total and tie to Table D-3, and every district's Table D-3 total equals its Table D-1 defendants commenced minus transfers. Districts are keyed to the Probative crosswalks; the state or territory of the district is the lookup key.

Period covered
January 1, 2017 to June 30, 2026
Places
The whole US, states and federal court districts
How often we refresh it
Every quarter
The source's next release
March 2027
Records read
October 28, 2026

Official sources

The sources the records cite most

What does a record look like?

  • United States (94 federal districts): 81,946 criminal defendants commenced in federal court in the 12 months to June 30, 2026 (up 6.1% from 77,239 a year earlier). By offense: illegal reentry 29,564; other immigration 5,355; drugs 14,722; firearms and explosives 9,836; fraud 5,172; sex offenses 3,638; traffic 2,044; all other offenses 11,615. Of original proceedings, 74,078 felony, 7,649 Class A misdemeanor and 66 petty offense. Transfers between districts are excluded (U.S. Courts Tables D-3 and D-1).

    Status P · checked October 28, 2026 · source: U.S. Courts, Table D-3, June 30, 2026

  • Texas (4 districts): 23,015 criminal defendants commenced in federal court in the 12 months to June 30, 2026 (up 22.3% from 18,825 a year earlier). By offense: illegal reentry 14,414; other immigration 2,187; drugs 2,108; firearms and explosives 1,120; fraud 607; sex offenses 332; traffic 40; all other offenses 2,207. Of original proceedings, 21,476 felony, 1,500 Class A misdemeanor and 26 petty offense. Transfers between districts are excluded (U.S. Courts Tables D-3 and D-1).

    Status P · checked October 28, 2026 · source: U.S. Courts, Table D-3, June 30, 2026

  • California (4 districts): 7,286 criminal defendants commenced in federal court in the 12 months to June 30, 2026 (up 12.2% from 6,492 a year earlier). By offense: illegal reentry 2,348; other immigration 1,732; drugs 1,576; firearms and explosives 343; fraud 540; sex offenses 142; traffic 3; all other offenses 602. Of original proceedings, 6,983 felony, 282 Class A misdemeanor and 10 petty offense. Transfers between districts are excluded (U.S. Courts Tables D-3 and D-1).

    Status P · checked October 28, 2026 · source: U.S. Courts, Table D-3, June 30, 2026

  • New York (4 districts): 2,073 criminal defendants commenced in federal court in the 12 months to June 30, 2026 (down 0.0% from 2,074 a year earlier). By offense: illegal reentry 212; other immigration 66; drugs 546; firearms and explosives 285; fraud 375; sex offenses 205; traffic 58; all other offenses 326. Of original proceedings, 1,959 felony, 94 Class A misdemeanor and 2 petty offense. Transfers between districts are excluded (U.S. Courts Tables D-3 and D-1).

    Status P · checked October 28, 2026 · source: U.S. Courts, Table D-3, June 30, 2026

The full records add the dates, the quoted source text and every field in the CSV and JSON files below.

What each of the 55 main columns means
jurisdiction
Two-letter code of the state or territory the district sits in, or US
level
district (one federal judicial district), state (the sum of a state's districts; only states with more than one) or us (all 94 districts)
district
Federal district key from the Probative crosswalks (TXS = Southern District of Texas); empty for state and US rows
districtName
The district's name
circuit
The court of appeals circuit of the district
stateName
State or territory name
periodStart
First day of the 12-month period
periodEnd
Last day of the 12-month period (June 30 or December 31)
latest
true for the newest period the Courts have published
value
Criminal defendants commenced in the period (same as defendants)
defendants
Criminal defendants whose cases were opened in the district in the period, excluding defendants transferred in from another district (Table D-3 Total). One person charged in two cases counts twice.
prior_year_defendants
The same count for the 12 months ending a year earlier; empty where the Courts did not publish that period (December 2024)
change_pct
Percent change from prior_year_defendants, one decimal
drug
Drug offenses (marijuana and all other drugs)
immigration
Immigration offenses (illegal reentry and all other)
firearms_explosives
Firearms and explosives offenses
fraud
Fraud (tax, securities, health care, wire, mail, identity documents and other federal fraud)
sex_offenses
Sex offenses (sexual abuse, sexually explicit material, sex-offender registry and others)
traffic
Traffic offenses, including drunk driving, on federal land and roads
other_offenses
Everything else: violent offenses, property offenses other than fraud, justice-system, general and regulatory offenses
group_violent
The Courts' offense group: violent offenses (homicide, robbery, assault, kidnapping, carjacking and others); the ten groups add up to defendants
group_property
The Courts' offense group: property offenses (theft, embezzlement, fraud, forgery and others); the ten groups add up to defendants
group_drug
The Courts' offense group: drug offenses; the ten groups add up to defendants
group_firearms_explosives
The Courts' offense group: firearms and explosives offenses; the ten groups add up to defendants
group_sex_offenses
The Courts' offense group: sex offenses; the ten groups add up to defendants
group_justice_system
The Courts' offense group: justice-system offenses (obstruction, escape, failure to appear and others); the ten groups add up to defendants
group_immigration
The Courts' offense group: immigration offenses; the ten groups add up to defendants
group_general
The Courts' offense group: general offenses (money laundering, bribery, racketeering, extortion and others); the ten groups add up to defendants
group_regulatory
The Courts' offense group: regulatory offenses (customs, national defense, game and conservation and others); the ten groups add up to defendants
group_traffic
The Courts' offense group: traffic offenses; the ten groups add up to defendants
d3_homicide
Table D-3 column 'homicide' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_robbery
Table D-3 column 'robbery' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_assault
Table D-3 column 'assault' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_other_violent
Table D-3 column 'other violent offenses' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_burglary_larceny_theft
Table D-3 column 'burglary, larceny, and theft' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_embezzlement
Table D-3 column 'embezzlement' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_fraud
Table D-3 column 'fraud' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_forgery_counterfeiting
Table D-3 column 'forgery and counterfeiting' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_other_property
Table D-3 column 'other property offenses' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_marijuana
Table D-3 column 'marijuana' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_other_drugs
Table D-3 column 'all other drugs' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_firearms_explosives
Table D-3 column 'firearms and explosives offenses' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_sex_offenses
Table D-3 column 'sex offenses' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_justice_system
Table D-3 column 'justice system offenses' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_illegal_reentry
Table D-3 column 'improper reentry by alien' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_other_immigration
Table D-3 column 'other immigration offenses' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_general
Table D-3 column 'general offenses' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_regulatory
Table D-3 column 'regulatory offenses' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
d3_traffic
Table D-3 column 'traffic offenses' as printed (a dash, meaning none, is 0); the nineteen columns add up to defendants
felony
Of original proceedings (Table D-1), defendants charged with a felony
class_a_misdemeanor
Of original proceedings (Table D-1), defendants charged with a Class A misdemeanor
petty_offense
Of original proceedings (Table D-1), petty-offense defendants assigned to a district judge (most petty offenses go to magistrate judges and are not counted)
reopens
Reopened cases (Table D-1); defendants = felony + class_a_misdemeanor + petty_offense + reopens
dui
US rows only: defendants charged with drunk driving (Table D-2, part of traffic)
offenses
US rows only (JSON): Table D-2's national rows for the period, [{id, label, level, value}] (level 0 total, 1 offense group, 2 offense, 3 detail)

How do I use it in my own tools?

criminalfilings_lookup
For one two-letter state or territory code, or US: criminal defendants commenced in each federal district in the state for every 12-month period since 2017, by offense (drug, immigration, firearms, fraud, sex offenses, traffic and the Courts' nineteen columns), with the felony and misdemeanor split and the change from a year earlier.
criminalfilings_compare
Federal criminal defendant records for up to 10 states or territories (two-letter codes) or US side by side, district by district and period by period, by offense.
criminalfilings_search
Federal criminal defendant records whose text matches the words given, such as a district name ("Southern District of Texas"), a district key ("TXS"), a state name or an offense word ("illegal reentry").

How to cite this dataset

You can reuse, adapt and republish this data, including commercially, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC BY 4.0). The only condition is that you credit Probative and link to the source.

Version
1.0.0, released October 28, 2026
Every version
10.5281/zenodo.23744205 (always points to the newest)
License
CC BY 4.0

Download the data

Free, no email or login. The files are hosted on this site and Zenodo, a public research archive.

Suggested citation

Probative. (2026). Federal criminal cases by offense and district (U.S. Courts Tables D-1, D-2 and D-3) (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23744206

Credit line for a chart, table or article

Source: Probative, Federal criminal cases by offense and district (U.S. Courts Tables D-1, D-2 and D-3), version 1.0.0, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23744206, licensed CC BY 4.0.

Add to a reference manager (Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote)

Not legal advice. These are counts of defendants in federal criminal cases, kept for research and marketing planning. A defendant counted here is charged, not convicted, and the counts say nothing about any person or case. Questions about a charge are for your own counsel.

What changed recently?

  • 2026-10-28 · Criminal defendants commenced in the 94 federal district courts by offense, with the felony and misdemeanor split, for 17 twelve-month periods from 2017-12-31 to 2026-06-30 (U.S. Courts Tables D-1, D-2 and D-3). (source)

The full log is in changes.json.

What are the limits?

  • Federal cases only. Most criminal cases in the United States are filed in state and local courts, which this dataset does not cover; a district with few federal cases can still have a large state criminal docket.
  • The unit is a defendant in a case, not a person or an arrest. Someone charged in two cases counts twice, and several defendants in one case each count once. A defendant counted here is charged, not convicted.
  • Defendants transferred in from another district are left out, so each defendant is counted once, in the district where the case began. Reopened cases are included.
  • Petty offenses heard by magistrate judges (many traffic tickets and minor offenses on federal land) are not counted; only petty offenses assigned to a district judge are. Drunk driving appears only in the national detail, not by district.
  • Each figure covers a twelve-month period ending June or December, so periods six months apart overlap by half. One year-end period is missing because the courts did not post its tables; the period a year after it has no year-earlier comparison, and the files list the missing period by date.
  • Offenses are grouped the way the courts group them: a defendant is counted once, under the most serious offense charged. Shifts in prosecution priorities, such as the recent rise in immigration and national-defense charges, move these counts more than changes in crime do.
  • Records older than 270 days since their last check are marked stale in the files until we re-check them. Every confirmed error we fix is listed in the data corrections log.

Found a wrong value? Report an error with the record id and the source that shows the right value.

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