The Interdependent Third Branch
Tracking court organization, administration, structure, and strategy
Over the years, there has been no shortage of workarounds for the federal courts’ PACER system, whose fee structure has been widely criticized and even engendered a lawsuit. Here is another workaround, an extensive database of case dockets going back to 2013, compiled by a Newsweek investigative reporter and posted on the Internet Archive.
(h/t Center for Data Innovation.)
Justice Sonia Sotomayor drew attention last week when she filed a dissent in a case staying the issuance of a preliminary injunction against the federal government. The injunction had been issued by a federal district judge in Chicago, and barred the Trump Administration from implementing a “public charge” policy that would require immigrants seeking green cards to demonstrate that they would not need government assistance. Beyond disagreeing with the majority’s decision to overturn the injunction, Justice Sotomayor expressed dismay with her colleagues’ readiness to entertain “extraordinary” appeals from the Trump Administration, rather than letting those appeals first work their way through the intermediate appellate courts. She wrote:
[T]his Court is partly to blame for the breakdown in the appellate process. That is because the Court—in this case, the New York cases, and many others—has been all too quick to grant the Government’s “reflexiv[e]” requests. But make no mistake: Such a shift in the Court’s own behavior comes at a cost. Stay applications force the Court to consider important statutory and constitutional questions that have not been ventilated fully in the lower courts, on abbreviated timetables and without oral argument. They upend the normal appellate process, putting a thumb on the scale in favor of the party that won a stay. (Here, the Government touts that in granting a stay in the New York cases, this Court “necessarily concluded that if the court of appeals were to uphold the preliminary injunctio[n], the Court likely would grant a petition for a writ of certiorari” and that “there was a fair prospect the Court would rule in favor of the government.”) They demand extensive time and resources when the Court’s intervention may well be unnecessary—particularly when, as here, a court of appeals is poised to decide the issue for itself.
Perhaps most troublingly, the Court’s recent behavior on stay applications has benefited one litigant over all others. This Court often permits executions—where the risk of irreparable harm is the loss of life—to proceed, justifying many of those decisions on purported failures “to raise any potentially meritorious claims in a timely manner.” Yet the Court’s concerns over quick decisions wither when prodded by the Government in far less compelling circumstances—where the Government itself chose to wait to seek relief, and where its claimed harm is continuation of a 20-year status quo in one State. I fear that this disparity in treatment erodes the fair and balanced decisionmaking process that this Court must strive to protect.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the dissent drew vindictive attention from President Trump, who took time away from his visit to India to chastise Sotomayor and suggest that both she and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who publicly criticized Trump in July 2016) recuse themselves from all future cases involving Trump or the Trump Administration. “I just don’t know how they cannot recuse themselves with anything having to do with Trump or Trump-related,” the President said.
The U.S. Supreme Court was not alone in facing scrutiny for the perceived political statements of judges. In Alaska, Chief Justice Joel Bolger has been drawn into a controversy surrounding an effort to recall the state’s governor, Mike Dunleavy. Proponents of the recall allege (among other things) that the governor showed lack of fitness for the office by refusing to appoint a trial judge within the 45-day period prescribed by statute, and by “improperly using the line-item veto to … attack the judiciary and the rule of law.” The legality of the recall was challenged in court, and the state supreme court will hear the case on March 25. But some are calling for Bolger to recuse himself from the recall decision, given that Bolger commented on the governor’s behavior at the time of the trial judge appointment controversy. (Bolger also criticized the line-term veto in a separate speech.) Bolger has declined to remove himself from the case of his own volition, but the supreme court did take the unusual step of issuing a letter inviting motions to disqualify if others felt it was warranted.
It is certainly true that judges must take care in their public pronouncements, especially as they relate to politics, public policy, or other government officials. Diving recklessly into partisan political debate is a time-honored recipe for eroding the legitimacy of the judicial branch. But it is also true that the judiciary is an independent branch of government, and should have a voice on issues that affect it as an institution. Where do we draw a sensible line?
I recently wrote about how the Trump Administration’s immigration policies are drawing pushback from both Article III and immigration judges on the grounds that they violate due process (including failing to give migrants proper notice of the grounds on which they could fight their cases). But disrespect for migrants’ due process rights are not limited to the current administration. Texas Public Radio reports that back in 2014, the Obama Administration decided to fast-track immigration cases involving unaccompanied minors. That decision forced the immigration courts to delay thousands of other pending cases, which the Obama Administration arbitrarily rescheduled for November 29, 2019 — five years into the future. When the day arrived this past Friday, more than 100 migrants showed up for their hearings, only to learn that they had been postponed again — until 2021.
Delaying cases is a due process violation every bit as tragic as failure to give proper notice, and both the Trump and Obama administrations are guilty of using immigration courts to score political points.
I have been writing recently about the vacancy crisis in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, which has only 11 active judges despite a statutory entitlement to 17 (and a Judicial Conference recommendation for 20). But docket challenges can occur even where a court has its full complement of judges. This story highlights the docket overload in the Middle District of Louisiana, which has all three of its authorized judges in place but which still struggles to manage its docket, one of the heaviest in the nation.
Happily, it appears that Senator John Kennedy is continuing to push for more resources for the district. But in our fractured age, when every judicial appointment has taken on a (misplaced) political tint, it’s nearly impossible to expect that Congress will adequately address the resource need.
A guest post by Lawrence Friedman
That a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court found the Bladensburg Peace Cross not to offend the Establishment Clause in American Legion v. American Humanist Association should not be surprising. The court has for years treated religious symbols on public property with a relatively light touch, relying upon the history and context of the particular display to determine whether it was intended to favor one religious sect over another, or to promote religion over non-religion.
Though he agreed with the majority’s conclusion, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch would have gone farther and denied the plaintiffs standing to challenge the cross. He argues in his concurring opinion that the plaintiffs, who claimed to be “offended observers,” failed to satisfy the most basic requisites of modern standing. As articulated by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, a plaintiff must show (1) injury-in-fact, (2) causation, and (3) redressability. The first element requires an injury to be both (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent.
Gorsuch maintains in American Legion that offense alone cannot qualify as a “concrete and particularized” injury “sufficient to confer standing.” And he is surely correct that, if “offense” is defined as “disagreement,” it should not count as the kind of injury necessary to trigger standing. The court has long held that standing requires some personal connection to government action, which is why individuals generally have no standing unless they can point to an injury they have suffered that is quantifiable and not contingent.
But maybe Establishment Clause challenges are different—or at least one kind of Establishment Clause challenge. Continue reading ““Offended Observers” and Public Religious Displays: the Question of Standing”
Changing the culture of a court–to promote efficiency, fairness, or dignified treatment of the parties–has been a program of serious study in the United States for at least half a century. But changing court culture is not merely a matter of changing judicial attitudes. All of the key players must share the new vision, including court staff, attorneys, and court users.
The trial courts in Vadodara, India are finding that out the hard way. Having declared that they will work through the summer to whittle down a docket of over 37,000 civil cases, the Vadodara courts were greeted with protests from some attorneys who had already made vacation plans. Those attorneys filed an “appeal” with the Gujarat High Court, seeking clarification that they in fact do not need to attend scheduled summer hearings. Among the reasons for seeking clarification: one hearing conflicted with an attorney’s personal naturopathy treatment.
India’s docket crisis is legendary and troubling. But judges cannot resolve these issues without the cooperation of the court system’s other key members.
The Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC) is a special federal court, created by Congress in 1996 to review applications by the government for the removal of non-citizens who are suspected of being terrorists. It is populated by five federal district judges, who hold their position on that court in addition to their regular appointments.
Never heard of it? That’s not surprising, since the court has never met in its 23 years of existence. And that’s because the government itself has never once applied to the court to remove a resident alien suspected of terrorism. The judges on the court don’t even know where they would meet if an application was filed, since no specific courthouse has been designated for their deliberations.
Why has the court never been called into order? For one thing, its powers and jurisdiction are arguably unconstitutional:
“I honestly don’t know why it has not decided any cases, but there has been speculation that concerns about its constitutionality may have played a part,” said Robert F. Turner, a professor at the University of Virginia who is familiar with the court.
Turner, a national security expert, said when the government is dealing with permanent resident aliens, legitimate constitutional issues have been raised. He said he believes constitutional complaints concern secret evidence, like sensitive intelligence sources and methods that identified the individual as a terrorist, versus the Sixth Amendment’s right to see evidence and confront witnesses.
The Bristol Herald Courier has a terrific piece explaining the origins, administration, and constitutional challenges facing of one of the least-known courts in the country. Well worth the read!
In a remarkably stark assessment, New South Wales District Judge Robyn Tupman warned that docket pressure on Australia’s courts might drive some of her judicial colleagues to suicide.
Citing two recent, high-profile cases of Australian judges taking their own lives, Judge Tupman argued that a lack of resources in the courts put pressure on judges–especially newer judges–to keep up with rapidly expanding dockets. This is particularly concerning, Judge Tupman said, when docket pressure forces judges to make highly sensitive decisions under extreme time pressure. By way of example, she noted that she was scheduled to sentence seven different offenders on the day of her remarks, some of which were bound to draw significant public attention. The clear implication of her remarks was that pressure to get the sentence right was exacerbated by not having enough to time to properly consider it.
Judge Tupman described the her current caseload as “ridiculous, absurd and offensive to the people of NSW.”
Her comments follow other recent statements of concern about judicial mental health in Australia. Local bar leaders and NSW Attorney General Mark Speakman have committed to review the judge’s concerns.
Facing a backlog of more than 60,000 cases that have been pending between five and ten years, Kenya’s judiciary has pledged to resolve more than 5,000 of them by September 28. The selected docket includes civil, criminal, and commercial cases.
It is not clear to me from the story why these 5,000 cases were chosen, or how practical it is to resolve them all so quickly and still do justice to the parties. Perhaps these cases are ripe for decision or administrative closure, and it is primarily a clerical task to clear them. But if they require resolution on the merits, this sort of frantic clearing of the docket is likely to backfire on the court system–especially since the story suggests that the judges won’t even be back from their six-week vacation until mid-September.
I welcome any thoughts in the comments from those more knowledgeable about the current conditions within the Kenyan court system.
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