Author: Jordan Singer

Rhode Island state courts to receive new magistrates, but not without controversy

The Rhode Island court system recently received good news when the state’s House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would allow the Chief Judge of the District Court to appoint an unspecified number of new magistrates. Currently, the District Court is operating with only two magistrates.

But the bill’s advance remains controversial. Other judges in the state are vetted by a nominating commission before being appointed by the governor. And over the past 25 years, many of the magistrates who were appointed outside the political process have had political connections. (Indeed, many are former legislators.) Can Rhode Island balance the resource needs of its court system against political patronage concerns that could erode the courts’ legitimacy?

D.C. Circuit to begin live streaming oral arguments in September

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will begin live audio streaming of its oral arguments when its new term commences in September. Chief Judge Merrick Garland made the announcement. D.C. joins several other circuit courts that have recently embraced streaming technology in the interest of improved transparency.

I wonder if anyone at One First Street is paying attention.

Judge Van Pelt wins in Georgia; Justice Goodson advances in Arkansas

I previously noted the bizarre story of Georgia Superior Court Judge Ralph Van Pelt, a twenty-year veteran of the court who was promised a “blood sport” campaign by a local kingmaker. Last night, Judge Van Pelt fought off his challenger, Melissa Hise, winning over 52% of the vote.

A couple states away, Arkansas Justice Courtney Goodson advanced to a two-way race with a local attorney to keep her seat, after a whirlwind couple of weeks in which Goodson sued an out-of-state group for broadcasting defamatory attack ads against her. That lawsuit produced a preliminary injunction against the ads in some Arkansas counties but not others, and the case is still pending.

Perhaps the cauldron of a political campaign improves one’s skill, patience, and approach to judging. But I am having trouble seeing it.

Patent filings in Eastern District of Texas fall 68% after TC Heartland decision

For many years, plaintiffs in patent infringement cases flocked to the Eastern District of Texas, spurred by welcoming judges, rocket docket scheduling, and a belief that they would find plaintiff-friendly juries. Defendants in the same cases naturally chafed at having to defend in the Eastern District, especially when there was little, if any, connection between that location and the allegedly infringing activity.  This led to hundreds of defense motions to transfer venue to another federal district court–motions that were usually denied by the local judges who wanted to keep the cases in their district. The Eastern District dominated the national patent docket, with well over a thousand infringement cases filed in the district each year.

That all changed last year, when the Supreme Court’s in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods read the federal venue statutes to severely limit where patent infringement cases could be brought. No longer could a plaintiff assert a reasonable connection to the Eastern District of Texas just because some defendant sold an allegedly infringing product there. Unsurprisingly, the new restrictions have led to a drastic drop in filings in the Eastern District, and a growth in filings in the District of Delaware (where many business defendants are incorporated), among other venues.

It will be interesting to see where things settle in the coming years.

 

Arkansas judges issue conflicting orders on judicial election attack ads

I reported last week on a lawsuit brought by Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson against the Judicial Crisis Network, a special interest group that has been running attack ads against her in the days leading up to the state’s nonpartisan supreme court election. Justice Goodson’s initial request for a temporary restraining order was granted by one trial court, with the understanding that a more complete hearing for a preliminary injunction would take place later in the week.

On Friday, that hearing did take place — in front of a different judge after the original judge had to recuse due to a conflict. The new judge, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza, found that Justice Goodson was likely to prevail on the merits of her claim, and granted the preliminary injunction, thereby blocking all television stations from running the attack ads. But in a strange twist, just hours later a second judge in the same circuit declined to grant the injunction in a parallel case. The dual outcomes mean that voters in some parts of Northwest Arkansas have been able to see the attack ads in the final days of the campaign, while others have been barred from doing so.

An excellent summary of the events, with far more detail than I care to set out here, can be found in this Arkansas Online story.

As I previously noted, this case raises a variety of important issues–about freedom of expression and its limits, the power of injunctions, and the wisdom of electing judges. We’ll continue to follow it through Election Day and beyond.

When elected judges rule on judicial elections

On Monday, Arkansas state trial judge Doug Martin issued a temporary restraining order preventing the conservative Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) from airing television ads critical of Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson. The ads alleged, among other things, that Justice Goodson accepted monetary gifts from lawyers. Justice Goodson sued JCN, alleging that the ads were false and defamatory. The election is scheduled for next Tuesday, May 22; early voting has already commenced.

The TRO raises a number of evergreen issues in judicial elections, including the degree to which it constitutes an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech, and whether the harm done to the judicial system by attack ads outweighs any benefits from selecting judges by the ballot. The additional twist here is that the propriety of conduct during judicial elections was itself determined by an elected judge — that is, someone who has a clear stake in the judicial selection process. Indeed, Judge Martin is no stranger to election controversies, having been censured for statements made about his opponent in the 2014 campaign. Of course, any Arkansas state judge would have some professional interest in the outcome of the case (since all face election), and I am not aware of any aspect of Justice Goodson’s complaint that would have made the case fit to be heard by a federal judge with a lifetime appointment.

As the name implies, a TRO is used to stop offending activity for only a short period, and typically expires within a few days. This TRO is no exception; the parties will return to court tomorrow for further hearings on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Given the high profile of the case and the stakes for Judge Martin’s reputation, I expect that he will carefully and extensively probe the First Amendment issues with the parties before issuing another order.

 

New research on the organizational role of court rulemaking

Flickr_-_USCapitol_-_Thurgood_Marshall_Federal_Judiciary_Building

I am delighted to announce that my new article, The Federal Courts’ Rulemaking Buffer, is now available on SSRN. Please download it early and often!

The article arose in response to two perplexing questions about the federal court system’s civil rulemaking process. First, why do the courts engage in rulemaking at all? The courts pride themselves on being highly efficient and countermajoritarian, but rulemaking is time-consuming, quasi-democratic, and policy-driven. Making rules by committee, then, seems particularly unsuited to the work of the judicial branch.

Second, why have the courts made the rulemaking process more complicated over time? Initially, the entire work of formulating and amending rules was assigned to a single committee. Today, the rulemaking process must navigate at least five levels of the court system hierarchy, with additional opportunities for public and special interest input. As a result, amending a single rule often taken three to five years.

So what gives? Why would the courts embrace a task outside of their expertise, and then make it more and more complex?

The article offers an explanation to both questions that is grounded in organizational theory. I explain that the court system initially developed the rulemaking process as a buffer, to protect its core work from the instability of its larger environment. The power to make procedural rules gives allows the court system to respond to a drop in resources, or a surge in cases, without the entire judicial process grinding to a halt. But the rulemaking process also requires external legitimacy to function, and when that legitimacy has been challenged from time to time, the courts have responded by making the process more open, complex, and transparent.

The article touches on many of themes of this blog, including the federal court system’s resource dependence, neoinstitutional theory, and the influential role of other organizations (such as executive agencies, the ABA, and Congress) in altering court-centered rulemaking over time. And it features appearances from William Howard Taft, Earl Warren, Warren Burger, Roscoe Pound, Tom Clark, and others.

The article will be formally published in the William & Mary Law Review later this year. I welcome any thoughts from readers, privately or in the comments.

Pictured: Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building

Courts are big organizations…

…and they require a lot more manpower than what the public might see at first glance. Courts need judges, clerks, and staff attorneys, to be sure — but they also need custodians, security officers, chefs, IT professionals, accountants, operations administrators, and every other type of job that allows large organizations to operate smoothly.

That point was recently driven home by this quirky job posting on the website for the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Colorado:

Apply for the full-time position of Database Specialist or Programmer for the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Colorado, and join us as a respected and valued cog of the massive federal  bureaucracy.

We work eight-hour days, rarely ever work after hours, and are not on call. Best of all, we have a benefits package that even the largest corporate conglomerate can’t (read won’t) offer, including a healthcare plan shared by members of the Supreme Court, all Federal Holidays off, amazing amounts of paid leave and separate sick leave, inclusion in one of the best rated, lowest cost retirement funds, and wait for it . . . a generous, guaranteed annuity (pension) backed by the Federal Government! You can work and have a life.

This job description is not exactly imbued with the deep solemnity that John Roberts tries to cultivate in all aspects  of the federal courts’ public persona. But perhaps that is the point. It’s a job posting for a database specialist, not a judge, and is (evidently) written to attract the best candidates for that specific position. Some database specialists may dream of working specifically in the court system. But I suspect that most don’t care too much about the organization’s day-to-day work, as long as the job is interesting, pays well, and has good benefits.

Bravo to the supervisors who allowed this posting to go up, and for giving us glimpse into the real people who make the courts run.

The editorial drumbeat for courtroom cameras

In the wake of the Bill Cosby retrial, which was not televised due to a ban on cameras in Pennsylvania state courts, the Scranton Times-Tribune has editorialized:

[T]he fundamental premise of the United States is that it is a nation of laws — the notion that the law applies to everyone and that no one is beyond its reach. Yet the state government and in most cases, the federal government, regularly take passes on the opportunity to demonstrate that philosophy as it unfolds in the real world of the courtroom.

When a cultural figure like Cosby or a high-ranking public official, like former state Attorney General Kathleen Kane, or an important civic issue such as taxation or gerrymandering ends up in court, cameras should be there to bring citizens into the courtroom to observe the process and watch history as it happens.

Courts long resisted cameras on grounds that they would be disruptive. But technology long ago resolved that problem. Pennsylvania and federal courts should allow televised trials and other proceedings. Doing so would enhance civics education at a time when it is sorely needed.

Meanwhile, UC Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky has made a similar argument with respect to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Not every courtroom needs a camera, and not every case or hearing is appropriate for public broadcast. But blanket prohibitions on cameras, especially with respect to cases of broad public interest, are increasingly difficult to justify.