Philadelphia has been home to a federal court since the founding era, and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania remains one of the most consequential trial courts in the country — a bench of more than thirty district, senior, and magistrate judges, a public-corruption docket that runs several times the national rate, and a fraud case, Kousisis, that the Supreme Court used in 2025 to redraw the boundaries of federal fraud law nationwide.
Here we map the district for anyone facing charges in it: the four courthouses and the judges who staff them, the prosecuting office and what its docket actually contains, the recent decisions reshaping fraud and corruption cases here, and our way of defending clients in this court. Best Lawyers in America 2026 lists our principal attorney, Elizabeth Franklin-Best, as a “Best Lawyer” for Appellate Practice, and Chambers USA 2026 includes the firm in its rankings for Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations. This entry sits in our federal courts directory beneath the Third Circuit page.
If federal prosecutors in Philadelphia, Allentown, Reading, or Easton have your name on a subpoena, target letter, or indictment, a paid, one-hour initial consultation with us will give you a working assessment of the case and a plan for what comes next.
Table of Contents
Quick Answer: Eastern District of Pennsylvania
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What territory does the Eastern District of Pennsylvania serve? | Philadelphia and the surrounding counties of eastern Pennsylvania, with courthouses at the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse in Philadelphia plus Allentown, Reading, and Easton. |
| How is the bench staffed? | Congress authorizes 22 judgeships under 28 U.S.C. § 133; as of June 2026 the court’s roster lists Chief Judge Wendy Beetlestone, 20 other district judges, 8 senior judges, and 7 magistrate judges. |
| Who handles the prosecutions? | The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, led by U.S. Attorney David Metcalf and historically one of the nation’s most active offices on public corruption and complex fraud. |
| Where do EDPA appeals go? | To the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which sits in the same Philadelphia courthouse complex and covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands. |
| Where does a Section 2255 challenge belong? | In the Eastern District of Pennsylvania itself, because collateral attacks go back to the sentencing court. |
| Will your firm appear in an EDPA case? | Yes — we appear through the district’s pro hac vice admission procedure, and the underlying law we litigate is national federal law. |
| What does the first meeting look like? | A paid, one-hour initial consultation in which we read the key documents and give you a candid evaluation of exposure and strategy. |
Key Takeaways
- The Eastern District of Pennsylvania serves Philadelphia and eastern Pennsylvania from four courthouses: the Byrne Courthouse in Philadelphia, the Cahn Courthouse in Allentown, the Gateway Building in Reading, and the Holmes Building in Easton.
- Its 22 authorized judgeships (28 U.S.C. § 133) make it Pennsylvania’s largest federal bench; Chief Judge Wendy Beetlestone leads the court as of June 2026, with 8 senior judges and 7 magistrate judges adding depth.
- FY2024 Sentencing Commission data show 488 people sentenced here, with bribery and corruption at nearly five times the national share (2.9% versus 0.6%).
- Fraud, theft, and embezzlement made up 15.8% of EDPA sentencings — almost twice the national figure — and robbery ran more than five times the national rate.
- This district produced Kousisis v. United States, the 2025 Supreme Court decision confirming fraudulent-inducement liability under the wire fraud statute.
- The Third Circuit, which hears every appeal from this district, sits in the same Philadelphia courthouse complex; the criminal notice of appeal is generally due in 14 days.
- Section 2255 motions and compassionate-release requests return to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for decision.
- We appear in EDPA cases through pro hac vice admission, litigating the national federal law that decides them.
The Eastern District of Pennsylvania at a Glance
Pennsylvania splits into three federal districts, and the Eastern District is the largest of them. Most criminal cases are heard at the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse at 601 Market Street in Philadelphia, but the district also keeps courthouses in Allentown (the Edward N. Cahn U.S. Courthouse), Reading (the Gateway Building), and Easton (the Holmes Building), with clerk’s offices in Philadelphia and Allentown.
Congress allocates this district 22 judgeships under 28 U.S.C. § 133 — more than any other court in the Third Circuit. As of June 2026, the court’s roster lists Chief Judge Wendy Beetlestone and 20 other active district judges, joined by 8 senior judges who continue to carry cases and 7 magistrate judges. That magistrate corps matters to criminal defendants: initial appearances, arraignments, bail hearings, and a large share of pretrial disputes in this district run through magistrate judges’ courtrooms before a district judge ever takes the bench.
One geographic quirk works in a defendant’s favor here: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit sits in the same Philadelphia courthouse complex, so the judges who try EDPA cases and the judges who review them share an address — and EDPA practitioners live with the circuit’s precedent in unusually close quarters. The district supplements the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure with its own local rules and standing orders, published on the court’s site.
Public Corruption and Fraud Enforcement in Philadelphia
Philadelphia’s federal prosecutors — led today by U.S. Attorney David Metcalf, who supervises roughly 140 Assistant U.S. Attorneys across offices in Philadelphia and Allentown — have spent decades building a reputation in public-corruption work, and the numbers bear it out. In the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s FY2024 packet for this district, bribery and corruption convictions accounted for 2.9% of the 488 people sentenced — nearly five times the 0.6% national share. Fraud, theft, and embezzlement contributed another 15.8%, close to double the national figure, with money laundering also above the national rate.
The marquee prosecutions match the data. The U.S. Attorney’s Office secured jury convictions against former IBEW Local 98 business manager John Dougherty — once among the most powerful labor figures in Pennsylvania — first for honest-services fraud and related corruption counts alongside a sitting Philadelphia city councilmember, then for embezzling union funds, leading to a 72-month federal sentence. Cases like these proceed under statutes — honest-services fraud, federal-program bribery under 18 U.S.C. § 666 — whose boundaries the Supreme Court keeps tightening, which is precisely where the defense opportunities lie.
The rest of the docket is heavier than most outsiders expect: drug trafficking made up 25.2% of FY2024 sentencings, firearms 21.7%, and robbery — much of it Hobbs Act work — 11.1%, more than five times the national share. Our offense pages on federal fraud, white-collar defense, and money laundering dig into the charges that dominate the white-collar side of this court.
The District That Sent Kousisis to the Supreme Court
When defense lawyers anywhere in the country argue about what counts as federal fraud, they are now arguing about an Eastern District of Pennsylvania case. Kousisis v. United States, 605 U.S. 114 (2025), began here as a prosecution over PennDOT painting contracts obtained through false representations about disadvantaged-business participation. The Supreme Court affirmed: a defendant who induces a contract through material misrepresentations can commit wire fraud even if the government suffered no net economic loss — but the Court anchored the limit in materiality, a battleground we press hard in inducement cases.
Kousisis does not stand alone. Ciminelli v. United States, 598 U.S. 306 (2023), took the right-to-control theory off the table, and Percoco v. United States, 598 U.S. 319 (2023), cut back honest-services fraud for private actors wielding government influence — a doctrine with obvious bite in a district that charges as much corruption as this one. At sentencing, the Third Circuit’s intended-loss decision in United States v. Banks and the Sentencing Commission’s responsive Amendment 827 frame every Guidelines loss fight in an EDPA fraud case, and with firearms at over a fifth of the docket, the en banc court’s as-applied Second Amendment holding in Range stays in the toolbox as well — a path the Supreme Court left open in United States v. Hemani (June 2026), which struck a prosecution under the drug-user prohibition of Section 922(g)(3) without resolving the felon-in-possession statute at issue in Range.
Federal Criminal Cases in the District
From corruption trials that lead the evening news to routine drug and firearms prosecutions, every EDPA case travels the same procedural road — and knowing where the exits and decision points sit along that road is half of effective defense.
Federal agents and the grand jury do their work first — a target letter, a subpoena, or a search often being the first visible sign — and an indictment follows for most defendants. The initial appearance and arraignment typically happen before one of the district’s magistrate judges, who also hears any detention argument; from there the case moves through discovery, suppression and dismissal motions, and on to either a negotiated plea or a jury trial at the Byrne Courthouse or one of the district’s other seats, with federal sentencing closing any case that ends in conviction. Each stage is unpacked in our federal criminal process hub.
What we contribute at each point is judgment built on the governing law: whether the indictment survives Kousisis materiality scrutiny, whether a § 666 theory holds up, whether the loss number driving the Guidelines is actually the government’s to claim, and whether the case should be tried — a question we treat as live, not theoretical, in every engagement.
Applied Insight: EDPA’s corruption and fraud cases tend to be document cases, and document cases are won in the margins of the paper — the emails the government underweights, the contract language that complicates materiality, the witnesses whose grand jury testimony does not say what the indictment implies. Defense counsel who master the record before the government finishes presenting it change how these cases end.
Appeals and Post-Conviction Matters
An EDPA conviction goes upstairs — sometimes literally — to the Third Circuit in Philadelphia. The window is narrow: a criminal defendant’s notice of appeal is generally due within 14 days of the entry of judgment, so appellate strategy needs to be set at sentencing, not discovered afterward. Issues that were never objected to face only plain-error review, which is one more reason trial counsel and appellate thinking belong together from the start.
Collateral remedies stay in the district: a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion attacking an EDPA conviction is filed and decided in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, alongside compassionate release and the rest of the post-conviction toolkit. Choosing the right vehicle matters more after the Supreme Court’s May 2026 decision in Rutherford v. United States, which closed compassionate release to claims built on nonretroactive changes in sentencing law — analysis we run for every post-conviction client before a single motion is drafted. This is the work our firm was built around.
How We Approach Eastern District of Pennsylvania Cases
We come into EDPA matters through the district’s pro hac vice admission procedure under its local rules — the standard mechanism by which federal courts admit qualified outside counsel for a particular case. It is paperwork, not a hurdle, and it has never limited what we can do for a client in this court.
The reason clients bring us into Philadelphia cases is the match between this district’s docket and our practice. EDPA prosecutes corruption and complex fraud at rates few districts approach, and those are precisely the cases that turn on the evolving Supreme Court and Third Circuit doctrine — Kousisis, Ciminelli, Percoco, Banks — that we litigate every week, at trial, on appeal, and in collateral proceedings.
Elizabeth Franklin-Best argues in federal courts across the country: she is a member of the bars of the U.S. Supreme Court and all twelve federal circuits, she literally wrote the book on overturning convictions — Reversing Your Criminal Conviction — and her practice runs from pre-indictment representation through § 2255 litigation. Over the course of her career she has handled more than 330 federal proceedings, including over 100 federal appeals, appearing in all twelve federal circuits and at the certiorari stage of the United States Supreme Court. That depth is what an EDPA defendant should demand from counsel in a district this sophisticated.
Frequently Asked Questions
What area does the Eastern District of Pennsylvania cover?
The district serves Philadelphia and the surrounding counties of eastern Pennsylvania. Court is held at four locations: the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse in Philadelphia, the Edward N. Cahn U.S. Courthouse in Allentown, the Gateway Building in Reading, and the Holmes Building in Easton.
How many judges sit in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania?
Congress authorizes 22 district judgeships for the district under 28 U.S.C. § 133 — the most of any court in the Third Circuit. As of June 2026, the court’s roster lists Chief Judge Wendy Beetlestone and 20 other district judges, plus 8 senior judges and 7 magistrate judges.
Who prosecutes federal crimes in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania?
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, based in Philadelphia and led by U.S. Attorney David Metcalf. The office has a long record in public-corruption and complex fraud prosecutions — in fiscal year 2024, bribery and corruption cases made up nearly five times the national share of the district’s sentencings.
What kinds of federal cases dominate the EDPA docket?
Sentencing Commission data for FY2024 count 488 people sentenced: drug trafficking (25.2%) and firearms (21.7%) led by volume, with fraud, theft, and embezzlement at 15.8% — nearly double the national share — robbery at 11.1%, and bribery or corruption at 2.9%.
Which appeals court reviews Eastern District of Pennsylvania convictions?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which sits in the same Philadelphia courthouse complex and covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The criminal notice-of-appeal deadline is short — generally 14 days from the entry of judgment.
What was the Kousisis case from this district?
Kousisis v. United States was an Eastern District of Pennsylvania wire-fraud prosecution involving PennDOT painting contracts and false claims of disadvantaged-business participation. In 2025 the Supreme Court affirmed, holding that fraudulent inducement can be wire fraud even without net economic loss, while making materiality the key limit — a ruling that now shapes fraud cases nationwide.
How does a federal criminal case proceed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania?
After an investigation phase that may surface through a target letter, subpoena, or search, charges typically arrive by grand jury indictment. A magistrate judge handles the initial appearance, arraignment, and detention contest; discovery and pretrial motions follow before the assigned district judge, and the case ends in a plea or trial, with Guidelines sentencing after any conviction.
Can an out-of-state lawyer appear in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania?
Yes. Like every federal district court, EDPA admits qualified outside attorneys pro hac vice for particular cases under its local rules. The procedure is routine, and the substantive law — the federal criminal code, the Federal Rules, the Sentencing Guidelines — is identical nationwide.
Does the firm handle federal cases in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania?
Yes. Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. defends EDPA cases through pro hac vice admission — investigations, trials, direct appeals to the Third Circuit, and post-conviction litigation under Section 2255 and the compassionate-release statute. A paid, one-hour initial consultation is the starting point.
Discuss Your Philadelphia Federal Case With a Defense Lawyer
The Eastern District of Pennsylvania rewards preparation and punishes improvisation — at the indictment stage, at sentencing, and on the 14-day appellate clock. Whether your matter is an investigation, a pending charge, or a conviction you intend to challenge, our paid, one-hour initial consultation puts experienced eyes on it before the next deadline arrives. If your case sits elsewhere in the circuit, see our pages on the District of New Jersey and the District of Delaware.