More Federal Judges, Please!

Judiciary Makes the Case for New Judgeships

The creation of new judgeships has not kept pace with the growth in case  filings over three decades, producing “profound” negative effects for many courts across the country, U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller told Congress today. Miller testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing on the Judiciary’s request for additional judgeships. He appeared on behalf of the Judicial Conference of the United States, the national policy-making body of the federal Judiciary. Miller chairs a subcommittee on judicial statistics for the conference’s Committee on Judicial Resources.

The Judicial Conference has recommended that Congress establish five new judgeships in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and 65 new judgeships in 24 district courts across the country. The conference also recommended that eight existing temporary district court judgeships be converted to permanent status.

Since 1990, when the last comprehensive judgeship bill was passed by Congress, case filings in the courts of appeals had grown by 15 percent by the end of 2018, while district court case filings had risen by 39 percent in the same period.