Legal News

The Strange Tale of a Civil (Only) Judge

By Ashby Jones

Question: Is a federal judge permitted to say, categorically, ‘I don’t want to hear criminal cases?’ We know that senior judges can make requests to hear only certain types of cases, but are other regular old Article III allowed to tailor their dockets in such a way?

We’re not sure, but a federal judge in Milwaukee is doing it. Judge J.P. Stadtmueller has stopped taking new criminal cases in a move, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal, legal experts are calling “highly unusual and perhaps unprecedented nationally.”

The strange thing: Stadtmueller hasn’t explained why he’s stopped taking criminal cases. He didn’t return repeated calls from the Journal Sentinel.

That said, the situation likely has to do with a strange dustup he recently had with federal prosecutors.

In the spring, reports the Journal-Sentinel, the U.S. attorney’s office in Milwaukee challenged him at the Seventh Circuit. Prosecutors accused Stadtmueller of showing bias in a 2005 gun case and breaking federal rules by suggesting the parties strike a plea deal in it.

According to the report:

Underlying that dispute was a concern by Stadtmueller - and shared by other judges - about the kind of cases coming into federal court. Because of congressional changes, federal court has shifted from mostly complex white-collar and organized crime to more low-level drug, gun and child pornography cases.

Stadtmueller wondered how this gun case had taken so much court time and why it was in federal court in the first place. The simple case was hung up by a plea change and several appeals. The government said those comments showed Stadtmueller was biased and he should recuse himself. Stadtmueller fired back that the government was “judge-shopping.”

The Seventh Circuit agreed with the prosecution, saying in its July 10 opinion that Stadtmueller had crossed constitutional lines. It ordered him off the gun case.

A couple of weeks later, Stadtmueller stopped taking new criminal cases and began handing off cases he already had.

“I have never heard of it happening before. It is troubling what he is doing because it is pushing caseload on the other judges,” said Loyola Law School’s Laurie Levenson, a former prosecutor. “This is what comes with life tenure.”

Federal Clerk of Court Jon Sanfilippo said he wasn’t sure how many criminal cases Stadtmueller has passed off, but he confirmed the judge is receiving no new ones.

“Right now we are in the middle, working out how to handle what is going on,” Sanfilippo said.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 24, 2009 (boomark / email).