Litigation

U.S. Judges Speak Out on Nominations Logjam

By Peter Hardin

Federal judges across the country are decrying  a backlog of judicial nominations and spotlighting the impact of vacancies on the delivery of justice.

These judges’ remarks were reported by CNN in an article headlined, “Judicial nominee logjam creates ‘crisis’ in some federal courts”:

• Federal Judge Roslyn Silver in Arizona: “We have a crisis, we have vacancies, and we would like to have them filled so that justice can be served.”

• Chief Judge Royce Lamberth in the District of Columbia: “This is as bad as I’ve seen it.” He added, “There’s a war between the legislative branches of government and the judiciary is caught in the middle and we are suffering.”

• Judge Royal W. Furgeson in Texas: “The border courts are absolutely overloaded.” He said, “You’ve got judges handling eight times the number of criminal cases than are normally registered in other courts across the nation. That’s a staggering docket. It’s amazing.”

Russell Wheeler, a policy analyst with the Brookings Institution, told CNN, “Government is now not doing it’s job, that’s what it comes down to, it’s just not filling these vacancies in a timely manner and there’s enough blame to go around.”

Ninety-nine vacancies exist out of 857 federal district and appeals court judgeships, CNN said. You can learn more about the judicial nominations backlog from Gavel Grab.

Full post as published by The Gavel on March 05, 2011 (boomark / email).