John Cafferty at a glance
- Current role
- District Judge
- Jurisdiction
- Idaho · State
- Judicial service
- Active
John Cafferty
District Judge · Idaho District Court, Judicial District 1
Biography
Professional career
- The First Judicial District encompasses Benewah, Bonner, Boundary, Kootenai, and Shoshone Counties Prior to this appointment, Cafferty held the role of a magistrate judge in Kootenai County from 2020
- Eleven years as a civil prosecutor, Kootenai County
- Judge John Cafferty brings extensive experience in both prosecution and private practice to his role on the district court
- District judge, First Judicial District, Kootenai County, appointed Feb
Education
- Undergraduate studies, Boise State University
- University of Idaho — J.D.
Additional information
- 19, 2025, succeeding John T. Mitchell
- handling a variety of civil, family, and trust-related cases.
- In Idaho, judicial vacancies are filled when the Idaho Judicial Council submits a list of at least three qualified candidates to the governor, who then appoints a judge.
- He also held the position of city attorney for Post Falls and served as a deputy city attorney prior to his judicial appointments
- Before joining the bench, Cafferty accumulated nearly a decade of private practice experience at Hawley Troxell in Coeur d’Alene and served 11 years as a civil prosecutor in Kootenai County.
- His career reflects a combination of civil, municipal, and judicial expertise, and he continues to serve the northern Idaho community with a focus on impartial and efficient judicial service
- His judicial experience also includes presiding over cases such as divorce filings, creditor-debtor disputes, and trust registrations
Applicable Court Rules & Procedures
Exhibits
Statewide
Idaho's statewide electronic-filing rule generally requires text-searchable PDF or PDF/A submissions and a 50 MB per-document limit; scanned-image attachments and exhibits may use standard PDF and are not rejected for the usual text-searchability format requirement.
A document ... submitted electronically to the court must be in the form of a text-searchable Portable Document Format (PDF) or a text-searchable Portable Document Format/A (PDF/A) file ... and not exceed 50 megabytes. A document that is an attachment or exhibit ... may be in standard PDF format and need not be text searchable.Idaho Rules for Electronic Filing and Service, Rule 6 ↗
Published courtroom rules
Shared court rules
Idaho Rules for Electronic Filing and Service, Rule 6
Idaho District Court, Judicial District 1
Scope is limited to the court class in the source claim. Shared court context only; case-type restrictions, exceptions, later amendments and case orders apply. This is not a personal preference or a complete rules inventory.
Official source ↗ · Collected 2026-07-27Sources
Identity source checked July 27, 2026.
Biography sources checked July 27, 2026.
Idaho Supreme Court official judicial roster
Identity source · HTML · Source checked July 27, 2026
View Idaho Supreme Court official judicial roster ↗Idaho Rules for Electronic Filing and Service, Rule 6
Statewide source · HTML · Source checked July 27, 2026
View Idaho Rules for Electronic Filing and Service, Rule 6 ↗current_membership
Current Membership source · HTML · Source checked October 4, 2026
View current_membership ↗