us-constitution criminal-procedure
Does &quot;district&quot; in the Sixth Amendment include state judicial districts?
<p>The Sixth Amendment refers to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law&quot;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Presumably this originally applied to federal offenses and the &quot;districts&quot; were federal judicial districts. Later the Fourteenth Amendment was construed as applying to the states as much as to the federal government. Would that mean &quot;districts&quot; could mean districts within which the courts of a state have jurisdiction?</p>

<p>The key phrase here is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>... which district shall have been previously ascertained by law</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That means the relevant &quot;district&quot; must be specified by law. In the case of a state criminal case, by state law. In some states it would be a county, when the relevant court is a county court. In any case, it would be whatever district the relevant court of criminal jurisdiction had as its area of jurisdiction.</p>
