U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Leah Millis | Reuters
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., urged a top U.S. judge in Texas to reform his district’s case-assignment rules that he says have allowed plaintiffs to effectively “hand-pick” their preferred judges.
Schumer’s demand to Chief Judge David Godbey of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas got here after a heated legal battle over the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of an abortion pill sparked accusations of conservative litigants engaging in “judge shopping.”
Multiple court divisions in Godbey’s district have only one or two district judges. The foundations currently allow for plaintiffs to focus on those divisions for civil cases — letting them “effectively select the judge who will hear their cases,” Schumer said Thursday in a letter to Godbey.
“Unsurprisingly, litigants have taken advantage of those orders to hand-pick individual district judges seen as particularly sympathetic to their claims,” Schumer wrote.
The Senate leader called Texas itself the “most egregious” offender, noting that in 29 lawsuits against the Biden administration, it has “all the time sued in divisions where case-assignment procedures be sure that a specific preferred judge or one in every of a handful of preferred judges will hear the case.”
Congress may “consider more prescriptive requirements” if Godbey doesn’t enact reforms, Schumer wrote.
Probably the most distinguished recent example of alleged judge shopping got here within the clash over the abortion pill mifepristone. The case was filed in Amarillo, Texas, a federal court division with only one judge: Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump who has expressed socially conservative views on LGBTQ rights and abortion.
By filing the lawsuit in Amarillo, the anti-abortion groups in search of to cancel the FDA’s approval of the drug virtually guaranteed Kacsmaryk would hear their case. Kacsmaryk ruled in favor of those groups, temporarily suspending the drug’s approval. The case quickly ascended to the U.S. Supreme Court, which last week ordered that the pill remain broadly available as further litigation plays out.
Critics say the strategy of targeting single-judge divisions harms the integrity of the court, because it effectively bypasses the same old technique of having cases assigned randomly. The random-assignment process is meant to “avoid judge shopping,” federal courts note.
“Previously few years, the country has seen the downside of allowing plaintiffs to hand-pick their desired judges,” Schumer said in a press release Thursday.
“The result? Chaotic and flawed rulings on abortion access, LGBTQ+ protections, legal immigration, and climate laws,” he said. “Our country cannot afford to let these practices proceed unchecked – wherever they might occur.”
In his letter to Godbey, Schumer noted, “Nothing requires the Northern District to let plaintiffs hand-pick their judges like this.”
The district’s split into seven divisions is meant to cut back travel times within the sprawling area, which encompasses greater than 96,000 square miles.
“Particularly with electronic filing, that division doesn’t have to affect judicial assignments in any respect,” Schumer argued. “Other district courts with many rural divisions divide civil cases randomly between all their judges, no matter where the case is filed.”
He noted that the Western District of Texas modified some case-assignment rules last yr, “apparently in response to forum-shopping concerns.”
Godbey’s district should make the same change for all its civil cases, Schumer wrote.
He conceded that courts can set their very own rules for the way they assign cases.
“But when that flexibility continues to permit litigants to hand-pick their preferred judges and effectively guarantee their preferred outcomes, Congress will consider more prescriptive requirements,” he wrote.