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January 1, 2011
Laments about judicial vacancies and federal criminal justice stats in Chief's year-end report
As detailed in this New York Times piece, "Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. called on President Obama and the Senate on Friday to solve what he called 'the persistent problem of judicial vacancies.'" Here's more:
The plea, in the chief justice’s annual year-end report on the federal judiciary, was an echo of one from his predecessor, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who made front-page news on New Year’s Day in 1998 by criticizing the Senate for failing to move more quickly on President Bill Clinton’s judicial nominees.
Both chief justices were appointed by Republican presidents, and both said that their interest was not in particular appointees but in a judiciary functioning at something like full strength.
“We do not comment on the merits of individual nominees,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote on Friday. “That is as it should be. The judiciary must respect the constitutional prerogatives of the president and Congress in the same way that the judiciary expects respect for its constitutional role.”
But he identified what he called a systemic problem. “Each political party has found it easy to turn on a dime from decrying to defending the blocking of judicial nominations, depending on their changing political fortunes,” he said. The upshot, he said, was “acute difficulties for some judicial districts.”
The full text of the "2010 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary" is available at this link, and it includes an Appendix with these notable federal criminal justice statistics:
Criminal case filings (including transfers) rose 2% to 78,428, and the number of defendants in those cases also grew 2% to reach an all-time high of 100,366. Immigration offenses accounted for much of the criminal caseload as filings of immigration cases increased 9% to 28,046 and the number of defendants in those cases increased 8% to 29,149. The majority of immigration cases — 73% — were filed in the five southwestern border districts. Most of the immigration cases — 83% — involved charges of improper reentry by aliens....
On September 30, 2010, the number of persons under post-conviction supervision was 127,324, an increase of 2.5% over the total one year earlier. The number of persons serving terms of supervised release after leaving correctional institutions rose more than 3% and accounted for 81% of all persons under supervision. Cases opened in the pretrial services system this year, including pretrial diversion cases, grew nearly 6% to 111,507.
January 1, 2011 at 02:01 PM | Permalink
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No shortage of filled judgeships.
The fewer the judges, the less frequent their insurrection against the Constitution in judicial review. What is in short supply is the number of judges who want to do any work. These are lazy, coffee swilling, slow shuffling, totally immune government workers, slower moving than a postal clerk when the line is going around the block to mail Christmas packages. They take weeks to do any research, then months to write a decision. The latter is usually composed of idiotic sounding legal gibberish, devoid of facts, logic, common sense, or any legal basis, filled with cognitive biases, and mistakes oof formal logic, filled with Medieval, supernatural doctrines, but firmly imposing the personal biases and superstitions of the judge on the public, at the point of a gun. They have the values acquired during their Ivy indoctrinations, basically sicko Euro Socialism, with nothing in common with ordinary American people. I make no distinction between Republican or Democrat appointments. They are all the same. Whatever one may think of postal clerks, they do not take months off a year to vacation in Europe, where Euro wicked legal concepts infect the Justices, and they serve as vectors to infect the rest of the nation.
I propose a behavior modification program for these lazy lawyers in government sinecures. They get their usual salary. However, if they want a cigarette or a sandwich, they must hand down a decision. End of shortage as the judges work harder for cigarettes or a sandwich.
The most appalling aspect of Justice Roberts' complaint? Judges are slow, stupid, and toxic to the American way of life. Most federal judges believe, they are working hard, intelligently, and helping the American way of life. This obliviousness is the saddest tragedy of all.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 1, 2011 6:10:40 PM
President Obama should have included the approval of his judicial and US attorney nominees in the deal he cut with the GOP last month. Shows you what his priorities are.
Posted by: mike | Jan 1, 2011 7:07:42 PM
Perhaps if the Supreme Court would do a better job supervising the Dem judges that go off the reservation, Roberts' call could be taken more seriously.
Besides, the Dems started this nonsense--they're the ones that need to stand down first.
Posted by: federalist | Jan 1, 2011 9:14:04 PM
There was, in fact, a deal on judicial nominees and a batch were confirmed.
Posted by: Kent Scheidegger | Jan 2, 2011 11:18:44 AM
President Obama and the Senate on Friday to solve what he called the persistent problem of judicial vacancies.
The most appalling aspect of Justice Roberts' complaint? Judges are slow, stupid, and toxic to the American way of life. Most federal judges believe, they are working hard, intelligently, and helping the American way of life. This obliviousness is the saddest tragedy of all.
Posted by: Chapter 7 Bankruptcy | Jan 3, 2011 2:49:47 AM
Imperious little Caesars, with lawless, self-dealt immunities. Ivy indoctrinated, America hating criminal and big government loving, supernatural, Medieval garbage doctrine spewing atavists, putting all law subjects in total failure, save for the one spectacularly successful attainment, lawyer rent seeking. The fewer seated in power, the better. These are waking nightmares for America, responsible for all social problems, pitiable economic growth, and oppression of millions of minority members by intentional exposure to massive criminal victimization. Before anyone can get too huffy about German public collaboration with the Nazi party, look in the mirror, at the forbearance of the American public for the eradication a million viable babies in the third trimester, in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
They are also all lawyers. Anyone passing 1L is permanently and irremediably disqualified to sit on any bench. Judging is a separate, unrelated to lawyering, very difficult profession. It should have its own schools, licensing, and research and development institutes. The person who cut my hair had to attend a two year course, took a long written examination, and demonstrated the ability to cut the hair of three different types of people before a licensing official. She is far more qualified in her field than any judge nominee, most of whom are political hacks, rank, learn on the job amateurs. Judging has to be at least as difficult a job as cutting hair and deserves the same amount of training and testing. Right now, the public is getting nothing but the expression of judges' personal bias and preference in these poorly written appellate decisions. Their lack of education at their job is evident in those, and in the failure of all self-stated goals of all law subjects. Imagine other service providers without any training, hired as a political favor, plumbers, doctors, architects, road crews. The incompetence and failure would be intolerable.
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