No single description captures the Southern District of Texas, because it is really two dockets sharing one court. In Houston, federal prosecutors run some of the nation’s most consequential health-care-fraud and corporate cases — the Enron prosecutions were tried here, and the 2025 national health-care-fraud takedown charged nearly 50 people in this district alone. Along the Rio Grande, the Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville divisions process immigration and drug cases at a volume few courts on earth match: 6,122 people were sentenced in the district in fiscal year 2024, more than 70 percent in immigration cases. Whichever side of that docket a client is on, the stakes are federal and the margins for error are thin.
This page walks through both halves of the district — the bench and its seven divisions, the prosecutors and their priorities, the practice customs that govern its courtrooms, and the appeal and post-conviction routes out. Our firm handles federal criminal defense, appeals, and post-conviction litigation nationwide, and Elizabeth Franklin-Best holds standing admission to the bar of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, so we appear here directly. Her credentials answer the docket: Best Lawyers in America named her a 2026 “Best Lawyer” in Appellate Practice, and Chambers USA ranks her for 2026 in Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations. This page belongs to our federal courts directory.
From a Medicare-billing subpoena in Houston to a drug-conspiracy indictment in Laredo, the right time to bring in counsel is now — we offer a paid, one-hour initial consultation to take the measure of the case and lay out your options.
Table of Contents
Quick Answer: Southern District of Texas
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What does the Southern District of Texas cover? | Forty-three counties and more than nine million people, from metropolitan Houston down the Gulf Coast and the Rio Grande Valley, with divisions in Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi, Victoria, Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville. |
| How big is the bench? | Nineteen authorized district judgeships — the largest federal bench in Texas — led as of mid-2026 by Chief Judge Randy Crane in McAllen, supported by seventeen magistrate judges. |
| Who prosecutes federal cases there? | The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, one of the busiest in the nation with more than 200 attorneys, headed by Acting U.S. Attorney John G.E. Marck as of mid-2026. |
| What is the docket like? | Dual-natured: 71% of FY2024 sentencings were immigration cases from the border divisions, while Houston anchors nationally significant health-care-fraud and corporate prosecutions. |
| Which circuit hears appeals? | The Fifth Circuit — appeals from every Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi federal district go to that New Orleans court. |
| Where are post-conviction motions filed? | In the court of conviction: a Section 2255 motion attacking a Southern District of Texas judgment is filed and decided here. |
| Is the firm admitted in this court? | Yes. Elizabeth Franklin-Best holds standing bar admission in the Southern District of Texas and can enter an appearance directly, with no pro hac vice step. |
| What is the first step with us? | A paid, one-hour initial consultation — a focused working session on the charges, the division, and the strategy. |
Key Takeaways
- The Southern District of Texas sentenced 6,122 people in FY2024 — one of the heaviest criminal dockets in the federal system — across seven divisions from Houston to the border.
- Immigration cases made up 71 percent of those sentencings, concentrated in the Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville divisions; in one week of June 2026 the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed 285 border-related cases.
- Houston is simultaneously a national center of health-care-fraud enforcement: the June 2025 takedown charged nearly 50 people here in 22 cases alleging roughly $360 million in fraud.
- The Enron prosecutions — Skilling, Lay, and Fastow — were tried in this district, and the Supreme Court’s Skilling decision still defines honest-services fraud nationwide.
- Congress has authorized nineteen district judgeships, the most of any Texas district; Chief Judge Randy Crane sits in McAllen as of mid-2026.
- Many of the district’s judges publish their own court procedures, and several maintain their own criminal local rules — reading the assigned judge’s rules is day-one defense work.
- The 14-day window of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(b) controls the start of any Fifth Circuit appeal from a judgment entered here.
- Section 2255 motions and compassionate-release motions return to this district, the court that imposed the sentence.
- Elizabeth Franklin-Best holds standing admission to this court’s bar — one of seven district courts where she is admitted — so our firm appears without any pro hac vice preliminaries.
The Southern District of Texas at a Glance
Of Texas’s four federal districts, the Southern is the one built around water and border: 43 counties holding more than nine million people, running from Houston and Galveston Bay down the Gulf Coast to the Rio Grande. 28 U.S.C. § 124(b) divides it into seven divisions, each with its own courthouse — the Bob Casey United States Courthouse in Houston, the historic Post Office and Courthouse in Galveston, courthouses in Corpus Christi and Victoria, the George P. Kazen Federal Building in Laredo, and the McAllen and Brownsville courthouses serving the Valley.
Prosecutions are the work of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, which describes itself — accurately — as among the busiest in the nation. Appellate review belongs to the Fifth Circuit; a conviction in Houston, Laredo, or Brownsville is tested in New Orleans, alongside appeals from every other district in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
The numbers convey the scale: 6,122 individuals sentenced in FY2024, a caseload that dwarfs most districts several times its size. Yet scale is only half the story — the same court that processes the border docket also tried the Enron cases and remains a first-choice venue for the government’s largest health-care-fraud prosecutions. A defense lawyer here has to be fluent in both worlds.
The Largest Federal Bench in Texas
Congress has authorized nineteen district judgeships for the Southern District of Texas under 28 U.S.C. § 133 — more than any other district in the state. As of mid-2026, the court’s roster is led by Chief Judge Randy Crane, who sits in McAllen, with district judges resident in every division: the Houston bench includes Judges Alfred H. Bennett, Keith P. Ellison, Charles Eskridge, George C. Hanks, Jr., and Nicholas J. Ganjei, who was appointed to the Houston Division in March 2026; Galveston, Corpus Christi, Victoria, Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville each have their own resident judges; and a deep group of senior judges — including Enron-era veterans — continues to hear cases.
Seventeen magistrate judges serve alongside them, and in the border divisions they shoulder enormous calendars of initial appearances, detention hearings, and petty-offense dockets. For a defendant, the division is destiny in a practical sense: the resident judges of Laredo or Brownsville see border cases by the thousand, while a Houston fraud case may land before a judge who spends much of the year on complex commercial and white-collar litigation.
We treat the bench itself as a research subject. Before the first substantive filing in any Southern District of Texas matter, we have read the assigned judge’s published procedures, recent sentencing decisions, and relevant opinions — groundwork that informs every strategic call without ever pretending to predict a result.
Federal Criminal Cases in the District
FY2024 sentencing data shows the split personality plainly: 4,349 immigration cases (71 percent of the district total, against a 30 percent national share), 842 drug-trafficking cases, 250 firearms cases — and, on the Houston side of the ledger, 219 fraud sentencings plus 80 for money laundering, one of the larger white-collar counts of any district in the circuit.
The route a case takes depends heavily on which docket it belongs to. A Houston white-collar matter often begins long before charges, with a target letter or grand jury subpoena that opens a window for pre-indictment advocacy; a border case may begin with an arrest and move to an initial appearance within a day. From indictment forward, both tracks run through pretrial litigation to a plea agreement or trial and then sentencing — each stage covered in our federal criminal process hub.
Guilty pleas resolved 99.2 percent of FY2024 sentenced cases here, with 47 trial convictions district-wide. That statistic cuts differently on the two dockets: in volume divisions it reflects fast-moving resolutions where the defense fight is over charge selection, criminal-history math, and safety-valve eligibility, while in Houston fraud cases the same number means the decisive battles are fought in the grand jury phase, in motions practice, and at the negotiating table — long before any jury is seated.
Applied Insight: Houston health-care-fraud investigations rarely surprise their targets — audits, payment suspensions, and civil investigative demands usually arrive first. Each of those signals is an opening: counsel who engages while the matter is still with agents and auditors can sometimes resolve it without charges, narrow its scope, or position the client for the strongest possible defense if an indictment comes anyway.
Houston Fraud, Border Volume: What Prosecutors Pursue
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas fields more than 200 attorneys across staffed offices in Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi, Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville, serving 43 counties. As of mid-2026 the office is headed by Acting U.S. Attorney John G.E. Marck — its prior U.S. Attorney departed for the bench, and only the current published leadership is asserted here. The office’s white-collar posture is unusually formalized: it runs its own whistleblower non-prosecution pilot program, publishes a voluntary self-disclosure policy for corporate offenders, and maintains its own corporate-monitor selection process.
Houston’s standing in health-care-fraud enforcement is measurable. When the Justice Department announced its June 2025 national takedown — 324 defendants and $14.6 billion in alleged fraud nationwide — nearly 50 of those charged were in this district, across 22 cases alleging roughly $360 million in losses, from hospice fraud to claims for skin-substitute products billed against nonexistent wounds. The legacy docket is just as significant: the Enron prosecutions of Skilling, Lay, and Fastow were tried in Houston, and Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358 (2010), which cut honest-services fraud under § 1346 back to bribery and kickback schemes, remains a load-bearing precedent in fraud defense nationwide.
The border divisions tell a different story at a different scale. In a single week of June 2026, the office filed 285 immigration and border-security cases — a pace it described as routine. For defendants swept into that pipeline, speed is the defining risk: charging, detention, and plea decisions arrive fast, and rights can be waived before anyone has examined whether the stop, the search, or the charge itself would survive a challenge.
Practice Customs: Every Judge Publishes the Rules
The Southern District of Texas supplements the Federal Rules with district-wide local rules, but the distinctive feature of practice here sits one level lower: individual judges publish their own court procedures, and several — particularly in the border divisions — maintain their own standing criminal rules. The court’s own guidance tells litigants to consult the assigned judge’s procedures the moment a case is assigned, and it means exactly that.
The practical consequences are real. Two courtrooms in the same building can differ on motion formatting, conference requirements, exhibit handling, and plea-hearing logistics. General orders fill in the structure — including the standing order defining magistrate judges’ criminal jurisdiction — and the Galveston Division operates under its own published rules of practice. We read the assigned judge’s procedures before our first filing in every Southern District of Texas case, because in this district the judge’s own rules are not a courtesy document; they are the operating manual.
Appeals and Post-Conviction Matters
Every judgment entered in this district can be taken to the Fifth Circuit — but Rule 4(b) of the appellate rules allows only 14 days from entry of judgment to file the notice of appeal, a deadline that should be calendared at sentencing, not after. Preservation matters just as much on the front end: in fraud cases, objections grounded in Skilling‘s limits on honest-services theories must be raised and kept alive at trial if they are to carry weight in New Orleans.
When the direct appeal ends, the docket comes back south: motions under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 and other post-conviction relief belong in the court that entered the conviction, as do compassionate release motions under § 3582(c)(1)(A). The Fifth Circuit reviews a denial of compassionate release only for abuse of discretion, the standard it set out in United States v. Chambliss, 948 F.3d 691 (5th Cir. 2020) — which makes the quality of the record built in the district court nearly everything. The odds underscore the point: the U.S. Sentencing Commission put the national compassionate-release grant rate at 14.1 percent for fiscal year 2025 (394 of 2,795 motions decided on the merits), and Fifth Circuit courts have historically granted relief less often than the national average. Post-judgment litigation is our firm’s core strength, and we practice it in this district with the advantage of standing bar admission.
How the Firm Practices in This Court
The Southern District of Texas is one of seven federal district courts where Elizabeth Franklin-Best holds standing bar admission. That admission is not a formality — it means our firm enters an appearance here the same day we are retained, with no pro hac vice application, no waiting on a judge’s discretionary leave, and no local-counsel scramble while a client sits in a detention hearing posture.
Admission to a district court’s bar is separate from any state license — it is the court’s own roll of attorneys authorized to practice before it. In a district as procedurally individualized as this one, the pairing that matters is admission plus preparation: we arrive already entitled to appear and already versed in the assigned judge’s published procedures, so the early hearings that often shape a Southern District of Texas case are never spent catching up.
Beyond this district, Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and every one of the twelve federal circuit courts of appeals, and she wrote Reversing Your Criminal Conviction — a background that matters most in the health-care-fraud, money-laundering, and appellate matters this district generates. Over the course of her career she has appeared in more than 330 federal proceedings, including over 100 appeals, before all twelve regional circuits and the U.S. Supreme Court, and she maintains a nationwide federal post-conviction practice; that depth is what stands behind a standing-admission appearance in this court. We also handle federal cases across the state line of the docket, in the Northern and Western Districts of Texas, where we appear pro hac vice.
Frequently Asked Questions
What area does the Southern District of Texas cover?
The district takes in 43 counties and more than nine million people, stretching from metropolitan Houston down the Gulf Coast and the Rio Grande Valley to the border. Its seven divisions sit in Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi, Victoria, Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville.
Who are the judges of the Southern District of Texas?
Congress has authorized nineteen district judgeships, the most of any Texas district. As of mid-2026, Chief Judge Randy Crane leads the court from McAllen, district judges are resident in every division, senior judges carry substantial caseloads, and seventeen magistrate judges handle initial appearances and heavy border calendars. Many judges publish their own court procedures, which govern daily practice in their courtrooms.
Who prosecutes federal crimes in the Southern District of Texas?
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas — one of the busiest in the country, with more than 200 attorneys in staffed offices in Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi, Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville. As of mid-2026 it is led by Acting U.S. Attorney John G.E. Marck.
Why does the Southern District of Texas have so many immigration cases?
Three of its divisions — Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville — sit directly on the border, and federal immigration prosecutions are charged where the crossing occurs. In fiscal year 2024, immigration offenses accounted for 71 percent of the 6,122 people sentenced in the district, and in one week of June 2026 the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed 285 border-related cases.
Which appeals court covers the Southern District of Texas?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, which also hears appeals from the other Texas districts and from Louisiana and Mississippi. The notice of appeal in a criminal case generally must be filed within 14 days after judgment is entered.
How does a federal criminal case proceed in the Southern District of Texas?
It depends on the docket. Houston white-collar cases usually start with a lengthy investigation — subpoenas, audits, target letters — before any indictment, while border cases can move from arrest to initial appearance within a day. Both then run through pretrial motions to a plea or trial and sentencing. In fiscal year 2024, 99.2 percent of sentenced cases here ended in guilty pleas, so the pre-charge and negotiation stages usually decide the outcome.
What famous federal cases were tried in the Southern District of Texas?
The Enron prosecutions are the best known: Jeffrey Skilling, Kenneth Lay, and Andrew Fastow were all prosecuted in Houston, and the court lists those dockets among its notable cases. Skilling v. United States, decided by the Supreme Court in 2010, narrowed honest-services fraud nationwide. More recently, Houston has been a centerpiece of national health-care-fraud takedowns, including nearly 50 people charged in the district in June 2025.
Is the firm admitted to practice in the Southern District of Texas?
Yes. Elizabeth Franklin-Best holds standing admission to the bar of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, one of seven district courts where she is admitted. The firm enters appearances directly, without pro hac vice applications or local-counsel arrangements.
Does your firm handle federal cases in the Southern District of Texas?
Yes — trial-level defense with an emphasis on health-care fraud and other white-collar matters, direct appeals to the Fifth Circuit, and Section 2255 and compassionate-release litigation. Engagements begin with a paid, one-hour initial consultation that works through the charges, the division, the assigned judge, and the strategy we would pursue.
Talk With a Federal Criminal Defense Lawyer
A district that sentences six thousand people a year does not slow down for anyone’s deliberations. If you are under investigation in Houston, charged in a border division, or weighing an appeal or § 2255 motion from a Southern District of Texas judgment, schedule a paid, one-hour initial consultation — we will tell you plainly where the case stands and what we would do with it.