Litigation

Nominations Holdup Sends Some RI Cases Elsewhere

By Peter Hardin

More than two dozen civil cases have been shipped from federal court in Rhode Island to Massachusetts and New Hampshire, because a four-year judicial vacancy in Rhode Island has caused a backlog of cases.

Chief Judge Mary M. Lsi of Rhode Island told the Associated Press that partisan squabbling in the U.S. Senate had kept the vacancy open for the extended period.

“Our job is to resolve cases and to do so in as timely and efficient a manner as we can. And when our ability to do so is hampered, I don’t think that’s good for any participants in the process,” Judge Lsi said.

A lawyer representing more than a dozen clients in a case shipped to New Hampshire said some of his clients found the transfer upsetting, and that also could be expensive.

“I want to work on my cases in my office, not in a Motel 6,” lawyer George Babcock said. “And with all these clients, I’m going to have to rent a whole wing at the Motel 6.”

President Obama’s nomination of Jack McConnell, a trial attorney, to the vacant judgeship has met outright opposition from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and resistance from some Republicans (see Gavel Grab).

The Senate Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, approved nominations of six federal judges this week, according to the Main Justice blog. It held over a seventh, the nomination of Edward Chen of California, for the federal district court.

The panel sent to the full Senate the nomination of Caitlin Joan Halligan  for the District of Columbia Circuit, on a 10-8 vote. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, announced that two  two gun-rights groups, the National Rifle Association and the Gun Owners of America, were opposing her nomination, a Blog of Legal Times article reported.

To see Justice at Stake’s web page on federal court nominations, click here. To see earlier Gavel Grab stories, click here.

Full post as published by The Gavel on March 11, 2011 (boomark / email).