New: Conservative 5th Circuit Judges James Ho and Edith Jones have issued statements criticizing the Judicial Conference's new rule that would curb the practice of "judge shopping" used by Republican litigants to challenge Biden policies. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...
Judge Jones told me the new rule "appears to conflict" with a federal statute that gives district courts control over the allocation of cases on their dockets and that there are "many complications spawned by this new policy."
Judge Ho said: "Judges are supposed to follow the laws enacted by Congress, not bend the rules in response to political pressure." Democratic lawmakers and the Biden administration had urged the judiciary to reform how cases challenging federal policies are assigned judges.
The chief judge of Texas' Western District, Alia Moses, by contrast said that while she had concerns about the logistics of transferring cases in her large district, the "mission or objective of the rule is laudable given the dynamics of what we are seeing in the courts."
Full quote: "The law, 28 U.S.C. 137, says that district courts control the allocation of cases on their dockets. Aside from many complications spawned by this new policy, and the fact that complaints started with the patent docket, not about 'federal' cases, it appears to conflict with that law."
It’s way outside my legal expertise but 28 USC §§2271–2277 includes “judicial conference makes the rules” and “the rules supersede conflicting law” provisions, including §2071(c)(2) and §2072(b)
www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/...
I don't know whether to read this as straight up corruption because judges might expect some recompense from being shopped for, or butthurt from bad jurists who are bad at their jobs and might not have much power anymore under the rule
sounds like they know full well their circuit is being targeted (and rightly so)--they just wanted to keep giving the green light to bad faith actors with impunity
