Courts

Judicial Conference Shocked SHOCKED To Find Forum Shopping In This Establishment

Sad day for MAGA judges hoping to unilaterally block federal law.

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Shocked judgesDonald Trump elevated Matthew Kacsmaryk to the federal bench so he could sit all by himself in Amarillo, Texas and decide to ban mifepristone. Trump appointee Terry Doughty hangs out as the only non-senior status judge in Monroe, Louisiana banning the Biden administration from talking to social media companies and blocking rules requiring hospital workers to get COVID vaccines so they don’t kill patients. Michael Newman — appointed by Trump — is likewise the only non-senior judge sitting in Dayton and ordered the entire federal government to ignore the Homeland Security immigration enforcement priorities.

It’s not just that rogue MAGA judges in random corners of the country can issue rulings to hamstring the whole country, but because they either sit by themselves or with senior status judges, anyone looking to derail the administration can seek to lock up a friendly judge to stand athwart functional government. Promising to “randomly” assign judges doesn’t do much when the roulette wheel is entirely red.

Historically, the federal courts scoffed at the idea that its membership could be transparent political hacks and resisted efforts to tweak the case assignment process. In fact, for years more judges worried about this system concentrating too many patent cases in Texas than its abuse by cynical political actors. But as the shenanigans mounted, the public took increased notice of the naked forum shopping and the reputational damage became too severe for the judges.

Today, the Judicial Conference of the United States announced a major reform to the case assignment process:

The policy addresses all civil actions that seek to bar or mandate state or federal actions, “whether by declaratory judgment and/or any form of injunctive relief.” In such cases, judges would be assigned through a district-wide random selection process.

That… isn’t a lot of detail. But it seems as though it’s saying that if a district does not currently put every judge’s name on the assignment wheel regardless of where they sit, they now have to in any case implicating statewide or national policies. Because, as the Conference notes, the argument for assigning judges based on where the case was geographically filed “becomes less important when the impact of a ruling might be felt statewide or even nationally.”

The amended policy applies to cases involving state or federal laws, rules, regulations, policies, or executive branch orders. District courts may continue to assign cases to a single-judge division when they do not seek to bar or mandate state or federal actions, whether by declaratory judgment and/or any form of injunctive relief.

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So, for anyone out there thinking that this could do something about Judge Aileen Cannon bumbling her way through Trump’s classified documents theft case, it will not. Not only is a criminal case not the sort of a matter covered by this rule, the Southern District of Florida randomly assigned that case to her anyway.

But for the FedSoc faithful like Kacsmaryk who relished their role deciding the fate of the nation from lonely courtrooms, they’ve just become a lot less important.

Conference Acts to Promote Random Case Assignment [U.S. Courts]

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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