The Enlightenment

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Welcome to The Judiciary at Noon! Take a break from work to get an update on the oft-neglected third branch of the United States government, the judicial branch.

The series covers any updates to the federal judiciary, including any new judges confirmed, any deaths, resignations, or retirements from the courts, and any new vacancies that have occurred. It includes political analysis and fun information about the United States judiciary at the very end. All information spans the previous week.

Confirmations

• January 24th: Jacquelyn Denise Austin was confirmed to the District of South Carolina.
• That same day, Cristal C. Brisco was confirmed to the Northern District of Indiana, a court that includes cities like Fort Wayne, South Bend, Lafayette, and Gary in its jurisdiction.
• January 25th: Gretchen Suzanne Lund was also confirmed to the Northern District of Indiana.

Both courts have a majority of judges appointed by Republicans. But these confirmations from Biden have moderated these courts. The District of South Carolina now has a partisan split of 6-8, Democrat to Republican. One of the Obama judges on the court is eligible for senior status, but hasn’t taken it; we could possibly be seeing a split court by the end of Biden’s first term.

Though the Northern District of Indiana is solid Republican (Democrat-appointed judges are outnumbered 3-6), the court has veered sharply to the left during Biden’s term. When Biden assumed the presidency on January 20th, 2021, there was just one Democrat judge and eight Republicans.

Vacancies

• January 25th: Philip Steven Gutierrez, Chief Judge of the Central District of California, announced that he will be taking senior status on October 15th, 2024, opening up a vacancy on that court.

90 vacancies remain on the federal judiciary, down from 92 a week ago.

Retirements, deaths, and resignations

On January 20th, 2024, Senior Judge William Charles Lee of the Northern District of Indiana died. He had been nominated by President Ronald Reagan.

Other

On January 24th, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on six new nominees appointed by President Biden.

Analysis

The Democrats finally start the year off with a…bang? Three judges in one week isn’t bad for the Senate, but it is absolutely clear that Democrats are not making judges a priority right now, considering they spent Monday and Tuesday appointing board members to Amtrak.

In all fairness, though, I may have been a little too critical of Democrats’ slow pace in confirming judges in my coverage thus far. Democrats have confirmed 5 judges in one month, which is about average and perhaps even good considering the Senate took the first week of this month off.

What I’m not understanding, though, is why Democrats aren’t confirming appeals judges first. Appeals judges are far more powerful than district court judges; in fact, they can overrule decisions by district courts below them. The only way to overturn an appeals court ruling is to take it to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court declines almost all cases presented to it.

So why not confirm them first? There aren’t that many; just six vacancies at the appeals level, I believe. Appeals judges are rare and far in between, and being able to appoint a replacement should be closely coveted.

Bonus: What is “judge shopping”?

The federal judiciary is often used as a legal weapon by political advocates who want to advance an agenda through the courts. Conservatives, liberals, animal rights groups, environmental rights groups, the poor, the rich (especially the rich), you name it all try to push cases to the Supreme Court to have laws enforced in the entire country.

But what if you want to maximize your chances of winning your case? As you may have seen in my series, I put emphasis on the emerging partisan balance of the federal judiciary with each confirmation. I’ve also mentioned how certain courts are completely lopsided in their partisan balance.

And I mean completely lopsided. There are certain courts where every judge is appointed by a Democratic president (Vermont) and ones where every judge is appointed by Republicans (North Dakota). So if you’re a liberal, why not file a case in the District of Vermont, and if you’re a conservative, a case in the District of North Dakota?

This is a process known as “judge shopping”: finding injured parties to challenge the constitutionality of laws in courts that are friendly to your cause. With Trump’s appointment of 3 Supreme Court Justices, the 5th Circuit (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi) has become known as a “pipeline” for conservative lawyers to get cases quickly to the Supreme Court.

Out of the 9 district courts that make up the 5th Circuit, 8 have a majority of judges appointed by Republicans, and these majorities are often big. Out of the 26 appeals judges on the 5th Circuit, 19 have been appointed by Republicans; Trump appointed 6 of these judges.

SIGN-OFF

That’s it for this week’s The Judiciary at Noon. This has been Anthony Myrlados. I’ll see you next noon and until then I wish you all an enjoyable weekend!