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

No judges were confirmed for the week of February 9th to 15th, 2024.

Vacancies

• February 15th, 2024: Judge Wilhelmina Marie Wright of the District of Minnesota assumed senior status, opening up a vacancy on that court.

The number of vacancies on the federal judiciary is 86, unchanged from a week ago.

Retirements, Deaths, and Resignations

On February 12th, 2024, Senior Judge Gary Lawrence Sharpe of the Northern District of New York died. He had been appointed by President George W. Bush.

Other

On February 12th, 2024, Judge Charles Joseph Williams, a Trump appointee, became Chief Judge of the Northern District of Iowa. The previous Chief Judge was Judge Leonard Terry Strand, an Obama appointee.

Analysis

All is quiet on the Western Front. I had gotten used to seeing one, even two vacancies occurring per week, but that hasn’t been the case these past two weeks (Judge Wright of Minnesota announced her retirement well ahead of Thursday).

The reason vacancies are going to slow is because the number of judges eligible for senior status is going down. Senior status is a form of semi-retirement that open up a vacancy on a court, and to be eligible a judge must be at least 65 years of age, and their age plus the amount of time they’ve served on the federal judiciary must be at least 80 years.

There simply aren’t that many judges like that left. Judges are anywhere from 40 to 50 years old upon confirmation. This means that there is typically a 25-year period before a judge meets the age and service criteria for senior status.

Most judges that have taken senior status during the Biden presidency have been judges appointed by Bill Clinton. Almost all Clinton judges are now senior; there are only about 40 Clinton judges left who have not taken senior status, judges I term “holdover” judges.

The vast majority of judges appointed by Barack Obama are too young for senior status; there’s perhaps 10 Obama judges who are eligible. Same for every Trump judge. That leaves us with judges appointed by George W. Bush.

While most Bush judges are eligible for senior status, they are staying on the bench hoping that a Republican president takes power so that they can appoint someone more ideologically similar to them, though many Bush judges have taken senior status over the course of Biden’s presidency.

As for Biden judges? I wouldn’t bet on it. I am now convinced that Chuck Schumer, leader of the Senate Democrats, does not care about this issue. Schumer has adjourned the Senate until February 26th, continues to take Fridays off, and has the Senate start late, typically around noon or even later.

It is sad and pathetic to see.

BONUS: Why are certain judges selected?

Presidents nominate judicial candidates based on a number of strategic factors. The two most important ones are education and experience. Every judge nominated has a JD (law degree), and the vast majority of judges have at least 10 years of experience in a government or private law office.

After that is ideology. While an apolitical judiciary is a desirable goal, the reality is that judges serve as de facto policymakers and so judges are selected based on demonstrated ideological leanings so that they may support a President or party’s agenda in the courts.

A fourth factor is age. Judges serve for life, so recent presidents (dating back to George W. Bush) have nominated judges that are younger than 45 years of age to maximize their time on the bench. Even this record is being pushed; both Trump and Biden have nominated a few judges under the age of 40.

All judicial candidates are rated by the American Bar Association as “Not Qualified”, “Qualified”, or “Well Qualified”. While this rating is not all-important, a rating of “Qualified” or “Well Qualified” will help a judges confirmation, while a “Not Qualified” rating may hurt their chances.

A sixth factor is the race of the judge. President Bush nominated a large number of Hispanic judges to the judiciary as an effort to win over Hispanic voters, as an example. In the last decade, this has now expanded to sex and gender: nearly two-thirds of Biden judges are women, and Biden has appointed 9 LGBT judges as well.

A final factor is the type of law the judge practiced and the school they attended before nomination. In just the last few years, there has been a push for more judges who have been public defenders and civil rights and labor lawyers to serve on the judiciary, and fewer judges who come from the Ivy League.

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!