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 at the very end. All information spans the previous week.

Confirmations

• Dec. 02, 2024: Judge Anne Hwang was confirmed to be a judge of the Central District of California by a vote of 48 to 43.
• Dec. 02, 2024: Brian Edward Murphy was confirmed to be a judge of the District of Massachusetts by a vote of 47 to 45.
• Dec. 03, 2024: Sparkle Leah Sooknanan was confirmed to be a judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by a vote of 50 to 48.
• Dec. 03, 2024: Catherine Henry was confirmed to be a judge of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by a vote of 50 to 48.
• Dec. 03, 2024: Judge Gail Allison Weilheimer was confirmed to be a judge of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by a vote of 50 to 48.
• Dec. 04, 2024: Judge Anthony Joseph Brindisi, former Representative to Congress from New York’s 22nd District, was confirmed to be a judge of the Northern District of New York by a vote of 50 to 49.
• Dec. 04, 2024: Elizabeth Cheryl Coombe was confirmed to be a judge of the Northern District of New York by a vote of 52 to 45.
• Dec. 05, 2024: Sarah Morgan Davenport was confirmed to be a judge of the District of New Mexico by a vote of 52 to 45.

All vacancies in United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Northern District of New York, and District of New Mexico have now been filled.

Vacancies

• Dec. 01, 2024: Judge Frank DeArmon Whitney of the Western District of North Carolina assumed senior status, opening up a vacancy on the court.
• Dec. 01, 2024: Judge Lee Hyman Rosenthal of the Southern District of Texas assumed senior status, opening up a vacancy on the court.
• Dec. 02, 2024: Judge Patti Barbara Saris of the District of Massachusetts assumed senior status, opening up a vacancy on the court that will be filled by her appointed successor, Brian Edward Murphy.

50 vacancies remain on the federal judiciary, a decline from 58 a week ago.

Retirements, Deaths, and Resignations

• Dec. 04, 2024: Senior Judge Joel Martin Flaum of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals died at the age of 88. He had been appointed to the Northern District of Illinois by Ford, and elevated to the Seventh Circuit by Reagan.

Other

Senate Committees

Dec. 05, 2024: The Senate Judiciary Committee cancelled its scheduled Executive Business Meeting. The Commitee was set to vote on whether to advance two district court nominees to the full Senate.

Analysis

The biggest news this week is that with the confirmation of Brian Murphy, Biden has now appointed more district judges than Trump did in his first term.

Trump still appointed more circuit judges than Biden—54 to Biden’s 45—and circuit judges are far more influential than district judges. Nevertheless, surpassing Trump’s number of district judges appointed is a large milestone for the administration.

With 181 district judges appointed, more than a quarter of all active district judges in the United States of America have been appointed by Biden.

With the appointment of Sparkle Sooknanan, Biden has now appointed more judges to the highly influential District Court of the District of Columbia than Trump did (5 compared to Trump’s 4). Biden has appointed a third of the entire District Court in the District of Columbia.

Now that Judge Anthony Brindisi and Elizabeth Coombe have been appointed to the Northern District of New York, all five active judges on that court have been appointed by a Democrat.

In the District of New Mexico, Sarah Davenport’s confirmation means that the ideological composition of the court when considering senior and active judges has become equal. Democrats and Republicans have each appointed six judges currently serving in some capacity on the court.

That’s to say nothing of the en banc majority, which has been majority Democratic since February of 2023 with the appointment of Judge Matthew Lane Garcia, with four Democrats and three Republicans. The Court, which had a conservative majority of three to two (with two vacancies) at the beginning of Biden’s presidency, will contain a healthy five to two Democratic majority as Davenport joins the bench.

Likewise, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which once held a slight twelve to nine Republican majority at the moment of Biden’s inauguration, has become a significantly more liberal court. With the arrival of Judge Gail Weilheimer and Catherine Henry, the Court’s twelve-member Democratic majority will swell to fourteen, with eight Republican judges in the minority.

A big reason for the shift in the court’s ideology is that an unusually high number of the judges appointed by Biden to this court replaced those of the opposing party. Biden appointed seven judges to the Eastern District, outpacing Trump’s five judges appointed, and out of those seven, five replaced judges appointed by a Republican.

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That’s it for this week’s The Judiciary at Noon. This has been Anthony Myrlados.