The Interdependent Third Branch
Tracking court organization, administration, structure, and strategy
(As long as you stay out of the courtroom, of course.)
Responsibilities of the job include documenting “the continuing history of the Supreme Court as an institution as well as the people who work at the Court, the architecture of the Supreme Court Building, and the historic objects and artwork in the Court’s Collection.”
Details here.
Sometimes relatively insignificant events serve as a reminder of the organizational nature of courts. For example, they sometimes have unexpected snow days. And, like the rest of us, they have to catch up when they reopen.
This has been a busy week for policies governing the use of courtroom cameras.
I previously reported on a bill in the North Carolina legislature that would convert the state’s elections for trial judges into partisan races. The practical effect would be that judicial candidates would first have to clear party primaries, and then would appear on the ballot with a party designation.
This was a bad idea, and Governor Roy Cooper has vetoed the bill.
Although Cooper is a Democrat and the North Carolina legislature is controlled by Republicans, the acknowledged inefficacy of partisan judicial elections is not itself a partisan issue. Politicians and commentators from across the political spectrum agree that in the modern era, party labels for judicial candidates weaken the public legitimacy of the judiciary, offer little significant information to voters, and are at best extremely awkward for judges. The North Carolina proposal was a step backward.
On Tuesday, the Judicial Conference of the United States agreed to recommend to Congress to create 57 new federal judgeships — 5 in the circuit courts and 52 in the district courts. The Conference further recommended that eight temporary or part-time district judgeships be converted to permanent status.
In its press release, the Conference emphasized the growth of the federal courts’ overall docket since 1990, when the last comprehensive judgeship bill was enacted. In that quarter-century plus, district court filings have grown 38 percent (with nearly equal growth in criminal and civil filings), and appellate courts have grown by 40 percent.
But the recommendations are more narrowly tailored than a simply 40 percent boost in judges nationwide. Only one of the thirteen appellate courts (the Ninth) is a suggested recipient of more judges, and only 27 of the 94 district courts are deemed to need new judgeships.
An examination of some of these targeted districts, and why it matters, after the jump.
Continue reading “The numbers supporting the push for more federal judges”
In February 2014, the local branch of the NAACP in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, filed a federal civil rights action alleging that the system used to elect judges in the state’s 32nd Judicial District violated the federal Voting Rights and the U.S. Constitution. More than three years and several procedural twists later, the case went to trial this week in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana.
Terrebonne Parish currently elects all five of its state judges using an “at-large” system, meaning that all judges are chosen by a parish-wide vote even though each judge presides over a specific division of the court. Plaintiffs argue that this system disenfranchises minority voters, and are seeking to replace it with five judge-specific voting districts, one of which would be a minority district.
Aside from the substantive importance of the parties’ positions, this case is another interesting example of federal challenges to state judicial election practices.
Continue reading “Trial begins in Louisiana judicial election voting rights case”
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has published its 2016 Annual Report and statistical tables. Although many of the most interesting tables are not publicly released, those that are released provide a wealth of information on federal court dockets and operations. I will likely have more to say about the 2016 statistics in the coming days, once I have a chance to go through the tables a bit.
UPI is reporting threats to the safety of the judges of South Korea’s Constitutional Court, who unanimously voted last week to uphold the impeachment of the country’s president, Park Guen-Hye. The judges will receive round-the-clock protection.
Background on the Park impeachment and subsequent court decision at the links.
My review of Nuno Garoupa and Tom Ginsburg’s book, Judicial Reputation: A Comparative Theory, has been published by the New England Law Review On Remand.
The BNA reports here that if he is confirmed to the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch would lose his position as Chair of the federal Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules, a role he has occupied since last October. This is only a minor administrative inconvenience for the federal court system; Chief Justice Roberts no doubt has already considered how to replace Judge Gorsuch on that committee. But the article does provide an important reminder about the considerable experience Judge Gorsuch brings to judicial administration, and lets us consider why such experience matters. Continue reading “Neil Gorsuch and judicial administration”
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