We all know about judge shopping, right? It's the practice of filing lawsuits in districts with only one or two judges, which guarantees you a friendly face if you pick the right district. It's most prevalent in north Texas, which has several districts that are helmed solely by business-friendly, anti-government, right-wing judges, usually chosen by Donald Trump.
This crossed my eyeballs today via a post by Stephen Vladeck responding to a recent defense of judge shopping by Reed O'Connor of.......the northern district of Texas. So I read through O'Connor's defense, and it turned out to consist of only two things:
- Judge shopping is even worse in patent and bankruptcy courts, so why are you picking on us?
- Allowing judge shopping means that "heavier access-to-justice burdens aren't imposed on citizens in our district based solely on where they live."
The first one is plain dumb, and also wrong. Judge shopping in patent cases caused a huge fuss a few years ago and ended up being banned in its epicenter of Waco, Texas.
The second defense doesn't even parse. O'Connor hears most of his cases in Fort Worth but holds hearings in Wichita Falls if the litigant is local. There's no reason this couldn't continue for genuinely local cases even if most Wichita Falls filings were randomly assigned throughout the northern district (which is virtually all located in Dallas/Fort Worth).
Stephen Vladeck's response is generally polite because, you know, lawyers. But I don't have to be: This is the flimsiest, most ridiculous defense of judge shopping imaginable. Unless there's truly something I don't understand about how much travel judges would have to do under a new regime, I think we can safely say that there's no justification for Texas-style judge shopping. It's a purely partisan Republican thing.
Fórum, often judge, shopping definitely is a feature/bug of our legal system. Either condemn the practice in all instances, or accept the reality of litigation in the US.
In our system, is it possible for a liberal leaning POTUS to nominate more, presumably liberal, judges to this district in Texas?
Our system has so many blocking points, both formal and informal, that it would be really, really hard to change. A POTUS would likely need a filibuster proof majority in the Senate (even with filibusters removed for judge appointments, Senators can still threaten other legislation to get their way). And then there is the practice of blue slips (that's still a thing, I think), where one Senator from a state can hold up a nomination. So, give POTUS 60+ Senators, including 2 in Texas, and then yeah, you can get some things done, maybe. But barring that, not so clear what you can do.
That Biden has gotten as many through as he has with only 51 is actually fairly impressive.
It might be worth nominating them even if there is no hope of confirmation. It would make a statement and it would force the opposing side to be explicit also.
Just an idea.
You're forgetting that the President is now a king (or queen). He or she could arrest a judge and put another in that judge's place, and could justify it as "for the good of the Republic."
" And then there is the practice of blue slips (that's still a thing, I think)" It's a thing only for democrats. Republicans always get rid of it when a republican president is in power/
I can't wait for some form of AI to take over the executive and judicial branches of our government and reduce the legislative branch to a debating club. Could AI do any worse than Trump, Thomas or Johnson?
As a lawyer who is licensed to practice in the Northern District of Texas and who has actually appeared before Reed O’Connor, I can confirm that his defense of forum-shopping through single-judge divisions is fairly ludicrous. Most cases in federal court—certainly the ones that are being forum-shopped—are being handled by lawyers from Dallas or Houston or Austin, not Wichita Falls. Most hearings could be conducted in other locations and it would actually be more convenient for the lawyers and parties. Not to mention that remote video is being used for hearings everywhere now.
"Judge shopping is even worse in patent" United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was created for the sole purpose of making judge shopping in patent cases pointless. Doesn't matter who your local judge is or what he does, the appeal is going before the same judges.