The Judiciary at Noon, #56: January 3, 2025 to January 9, 2025

Keep up-to-date on the US federal judiciary, January 3 to January 9, 2025.

January 10, 2025

2–3 minutes

Image courtesy of Sora Shimazaki/Pexels

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

No judges were confirmed for the week spanning January 3 to January 9, 2025.

Vacancies

Jan. 7, 2025: Judge Valerie Elaine Caproni of the Southern District of New York assumed senior status, opening up a vacancy on the court.

46 vacancies remain on the federal judiciary, an increase from 45 a week ago.

Retirements, Deaths, and Resignations

No judges retired, died, or resigned in the week spanning January 3 to January 9, 2025.

Other

Judges Seated

Jan. 7, 2025: Sharad Harshad Desai received his commission to serve as a Judge of the District of Arizona.
Jan. 9, 2025: Serena Raquel Murillo received her commission to serve as a Judge of the Central District of California.
Jan. 9, 2025: Benjamin Jerome Cheeks received his commission to serve as a Judge of the Southern District of California.

Analysis

Well, there is not much to add for this week. I would like to nevertheless add something for my dear readers.

What will judicial appointments look like under Trump? It’s a fascinating question to me. Not much has been reported on this question yet, as attention is still being focused on Trump’s current cabinet nominees. I found an interesting article from The 19th News that discusses this question. I hope you will give it a read.

In it, the authors explain that the second Trump presidency is going to be very different from the first when it comes to judicial appointments. First, it must be recognized that Trump is not going to get to appoint so many judges so quickly as he did in his first term.

Due to Republicans blocking Obama from making any appointments, Trump inherited over 100 vacancies from the Obama administration. Not so this time around. There will be less than 50 vacancies for Trump to fill.

I am also reading that Trump may not rely on the Federalist Society as much for his appointments. The conservative law group was crucial in identifying, vetting, and marketing conservative judges to Trump. Now, Trump may be looking to appoint people loyal to him, rather than strictly conservative judges per se.

SIGN-OFF

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

One response to “The Judiciary at Noon, #56: January 3, 2025 to January 9, 2025”

Anonymous

January 13, 2025 at 2:06 pm

Trump’s relationship with Leonard Leo (Federalist Society) and Don McGahn (WH Counsel) should be frosty now, but McGahn was far less the WH Counsel than his successor Pat Cipollone, so I always had some problems to see him as the mastermind, maybe because he has initiated the judicial process and Cipollone just went on, but I have no doubt that he will appoint a right-wing attorney to this post.

Generally I’m convinced, that the Federalist Society will play an important role in the vetting process for the future, maybe not in that way it did in Trump’s first term, but it was already important under George W. Bush’s term, and not using the existing pool of bold conservative attorneys you could utizile from would be ridiculous. But we don’t know, and maybe the homestate senators want to bring family members, good friends and donors inside, too.

The number is of vacancies is low in the moment, but might grow after the inauguration. But we don’t know how many vacancies are really opening, as both Trump and Biden has appointed almost half of the federal judges, I hope it will be very few, but realistic, some will go at the day they become eligible, no matter who is President that time, some will timing their leave to a President they expect a favourable successor, and the other ones are staying until their death without hesitating political games.

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