Courts Commons^™

The Federal Appellate Court Appointments Conundrum,, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Selection of federal appellate court judges is now extremely controversial. Slowed nominee processing, accusations and countercharges between Democrats and Republicans, as well as "paybacks," have characterized appointments since 1990. One tenth of the 179 active circuit judgeships authorized by the United States Congress are perennially vacant, and substantial numbers of these positions can remain open for years. The Senate Judiciary Committee increasingly votes along straight political party lines, and Democratic senators even relied on filibusters to deny nominees positions on the United States Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit as well as the Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth …

Health Courts: Panacea Or Palliative?, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Tobias weighs the pros and cons of legislation proposed in several states that would create "health courts" for the handling of medical malpractice cases.

Appellate Court Appointments In The Second Bush Administration, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Prof. Tobias discusses the renominations by President George W. Bush of twelve candidates for the United States courts of appeals, all previously opposed by Democratic senators during the President's initial term. Likely reasons and predicted consequences for these renominations are offered.

Committee To Evaluate Judicial Conduct And Disability Act, Carl Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

In late May, Chief.Justice William H. Rehnquist appointed the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act Study Committee to analyze how the federal judicial system has implemented the Judicial Councils Reform and Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980 (28 U.S.C. §§ 351-54). That legislation authorizes anyone to file a complaint alleging that a federal appellate, district, magistrate, or bankruptcy judge has "engaged in conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts" or is mentally or physically unable to perform the judicial officer's duties. The statute neither prescribes ethical standards nor applies to the United States …

Doing Right By Charles Alan Wright, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Review of Charles Alan Wright & Mary Kay Kane, Law of Federal Courts (6th ed. 2002)

Admissibility As Cause And Effect: Considering Affirmative Rights Under The Confrontation Clause, John G. Douglass

Law Faculty Publications

In this essay, I first examine some of the strategic choices spawned by the Supreme Court's "microscopic" focus on reliability in confrontation-hearsay cases. Rather than promoting the value at the core of the Confrontation Clause-the adversarial testing of prosecution evidence-the Court's approach leads to choices that ignore that value. While the Court scrutinizes hearsay under the microscope of reliability, it leaves the parties free to ignore and even to avoid available opportunities for effective confrontation of the hearsay declarant. At the same time, the Court's constitutional definition of reliability-which it equates with "firmly rooted" hearsay exceptions -has encouraged prosecutors to …

Sixth Circuit Federal Judicial Selection, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Many of the 179 active federal appeals court judgeships authorized by Congress have remained vacant for protracted times. Over the last dozen years, the appellate system has experienced numerous openings, which have generally comprised ten percent of those seats. Particular tribunals' situations have been worse. At various times since 1996, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Fourth, and Ninth Circuits operated without a third of their judges. However, the most egregious and recent illustration is the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Almost half of that court's positions are now empty, while a number …

From A Cattle Ranch To The Supreme Court, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Review of Sandra Day O'Connor, Lazy B: Growing Up On A Cattle Ranch In The American Southwest (2002).

Virtual Cross-Examination: The Art Of Impeaching Hearsay, John G. Douglass

Law Faculty Publications

Trial lawyers and judges are quite accustomed to courtroom battles over the admissibility of hearsay. But relatively few have much experience at challenging the credibility of hearsay. Once hearsay is admitted in evidence, even the ablest advocates typically proceed as if the hearsay battle were over, at least until the appeal. Few lawyers take advantage of the opportunities available to impeach the hearsay declarant. Consider the perspective of one experienced trial judge: I sometimes wonder at what seems to me the passing up of golden opportunities by the able advocate. Foremost among these lost opportunities is the virtual total neglect …

Quirin Revisited, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Six decades ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Ex parte Quirin, in which the Justices determined that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt possessed the requisite constitutional authority to institute and use a military commission.

On November 13, 2001, President George W. Bush promulgated an Executive Order (Bush Order) that authorized the establishment and application of military commissions as well as purported to eliminate whatever jurisdiction federal courts might have by statute and to deny federal court access to individuals prosecuted or detained for terrorism. The Bush administration substantially premised that the Order and jurisdiction-stripping proviso on Ex parte Quirin. It has …

Justice Byron White And The Importance Of Process, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Justice Byron White exhibited acute sensitivity to process during his exceptional career on the Supreme Court. This essay affords several illustrations of that characteristic. One was his perceptive account of the Court's responsibility for amending the rules which mainly govern federal district court practice. The second was careful stewardship of a federal appellate court study authorized by Congress after the jurist had resigned. Another was his persistent dissents from denials of petitions for Supreme Court review. These examples relate to the three levels in the federal judicial hierarchy, and demonstrate Justice White's abiding concern for each constituent and the whole …

Contractual Choice Of Law And The Prudential Foundations Of Appellate Review, David Frisch

Law Faculty Publications

What are the advantages and disadvantages of appellate review of trial court rulings on issues of foreign law? What exactly does judicial review of unsettled questions of foreign law accomplish? What is its price? These questions are of considerable theoretical interest and immense practical importance. Their resolution calls for inquiries into the allocation of judicial authority and in its production of outcomes in the real world. The discussion proceeds first by briefly describing in Part II some of the causes and effects of the steadily increasing caseloads in appellate courts. After demonstrating that these caseloads may soon become unmanageable, Part …

Local Federal Civil Procedure For The Twenty-First Century, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Federal civil procedure is now byzantine. Lawyers and parties face, and federal judges apply, a bewildering panorama of requirements. There are strictures in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as well as Title 28 of the United States Code and dozens of substantive statutes. A stunning array of local measures-including local rules; general, special, and scheduling orders; individual-judge practices; and mechanisms that courts adopted under the Civil Justice Reform Act (CJRA) of 1990 to reduce cost and delay-also govern cases in all ninety-four districts. Many of the provisions· are inconsistent or duplicative, while a significant percentage are difficult to discover, …

Dear Chief Judge Schroeder, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Dear Judge Schroeder: Congratulations on becoming the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Judge Procter Hug, Jr., transferred that office to you on December 1, 2000, during a quiet period in the tribunal's life, affording several months of relative calm m which to assume the daunting responsibility for Ninth Circuit operations. Your twenty-one-year service as an active court member will promote the felicitous discharge of your new duties as chief judge and will ease resolution of the difficulties that the tribunal will invariably encounter.

You have entered the pantheon of leaders whose century …

Dear President Bush, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Tobias offers advice on judicial selection philosophy for the newly-elected President George W. Bush.

Federal Judicial Selection In The Fourth Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Tobias assesses federal judicial selection for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for North Carolina. His Essay ascertains that four of fifteen active judgeships that Congress has authorized for the court have remained vacant over a considerable period and that a seat designated for North Carolina has been unfilled for seven years. He finds that these judicial vacancies may affect the appellate justice which the Fourth Circuit delivers and that North Carolina deserves.

Anastasoff, Unpublished Opinions, And Federal Appellate Justice, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

In Anastasoff v. United States, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently invalidated the court's local rule of appellate procedure providing that "unpublished opinions are not precedent and parties generally should not cite them." Eighth Circuit Judge Richard S. Arnold authored the opinion, holding that this local requirement violates Article ill of the United States Constitution. Regardless of whether the provocative decision in Anastasoff is constitutionally sound, the opinion trenchantly emphasizes the critical significance of a public policy issue that has remained essentially untreated for too long.

The three-judge panel, thus, threw …

A Preferable Approach For The Ninth Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

United States Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) recently introduced Senate Bill 2184, which would split the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit into two circuits. This measure differs from Senate Bill 253 that embodies the recommendations submitted to Congress by the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals after its one-year study. The Commission found "no persuasive evidence that the Ninth Circuit ... is not working effectively" and clearly rejected bifurcation. However, the Commission recommended that Congress impose a divisional restructuring on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and authorize the …

The Expiration Of The Civil Justice Reform Act Of 1990, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Ever since the United States Congress passed the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990 (CJRA), a minor mystery of federal court jurisprudence has been whether - and if so, precisely when - that significant and controversial legislation expired. The measure instituted unprecedented nationwide experimentation with procedures that lawmakers intended to decrease cost and delay in civil litigation, but the statute's implementation additionally balkanized federal practice and procedure.

A Note On The Neutral Assignment Of Federal Appellate Judges, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Response to J. Robert Brown, Jr. & Allison Herren Lee, Neutral Assignment of Judges at the Court of Appeals, 78 Tex. L. Rev. 1037 (2000).

Divisional Arrangement For The Federal Appeals Courts, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The 106th Congress seriously considered proposed legislation that could profoundly affect the federal appellate courts, and the 107th Congress may well do so. The Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals, which performed a rather comprehensive, albeit incomplete, study of the tribunals, recommended this bill as the centerpiece of its report for Congress. The commissioners prescribed regionally-based adjudicative divisions for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for the remaining appellate courts when the courts increase in size, even as the commission decisively rejected the possibility of splitting the Ninth Circuit into multiple …

Charles Alan Wright And The Fragmentation Of Federal Practice And Procedure, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Memorial tribute to Professor Charles Alan Wright.

The Bush Administration And Appeals Courts Nominees, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

On May 9, President George H.W. Bush announced his first set of nominees for the United States Courts of Appeals. With a White House ceremony which chief executives traditionally reserve for United States Supreme Court designees, the president introduced eleven individuals whom he proposed for vacancies on the federal intermediate appellate courts. Submitting a package of appeals court nominees might seem to be a relatively mundane exercise. However, the developments that led to Bush's recommendations, the staging of this event, and the candidates tendered actually reveal much about contemporary judicial selection, which is a critical feature of constitutional governance. For …

The Next Step For The Ninth Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Arthur Hellman recently published a trenchant critique of the report compiled by the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals. In The Unkindest Cut: The White Commission Proposal to Restructure the Ninth Circuit, he emphasizes that the report adduced little empirical data which demonstrate that the Ninth Circuit operates inefficaciously. Indeed, the commissioners candidly declared: "There is no persuasive evidence that the Ninth Circuit ... is not working effectively ... .'' Despite this admission, the Commission prescribed drastic change with a divisional concept, which Professor Hellman finds flawed. He thus urges that Congress "reject the proposal …

Choosing Judges At The Close Of The Clinton Administration, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Tobias suggests that federal judicial selection is one important area in which ·President Bill Clinton hopes that he will leave a legacy. The author finds that the first Clinton Administration realized much success in choosing judges who make the federal judiciary more diverse and who possess excellent qualifications. Over the last five years, however, the Administration has not been equally successful either in placing highly competent female and minority attorneys on the bench or in filling the perennial judicial vacancies, partly because the Republican Party has enjoyed a significant majority in the Senate. The author's analysis shows that similar …

The Federal Appeals Courts At Century's End, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals submitted its report and suggestions to the United States Congress and the President in December 1998. The Commission spent ten months studying the "structure and alignment of the Federal Court of Appeals system, with particular reference to the Ninth Circuit," and two months developing "recommendations for such changes in circuit boundaries or structure as may be appropriate for the expeditious and effective disposition of the caseload of the Federal Courts of Appeals, consistent with fundamental concepts of fairness and due process." The centerpiece of the Commission's proposal is the …

Filling The Federal Appellate Openings On The 9th Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Throughout much of the 1990s, the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has operated with fewer than the court's complete complement of 28 active judges. Since 1995, when Republican senators representing states of the Pacific Northwest instituted a serious campaign to divide the 9th Circuit, the court has essentially functioned absent one-fourth of its membership. The large number of openings and their protracted nature, as well as a steadily expanding docket, have demanded that the 9th Circuit depend on many appellate and district court judges who are not active members of the 9th Circuit when staffing three-judge …

The White Commission And The Federal Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals, or White Commission, ("the Commission") recently issued a report and recommendations for Congress and the President after studying the appellate courts for a year. The Commission investigation emphasized the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, as Congress had instructed. The centerpiece of the Commission's recommendations was a divisional arrangement for the Ninth Circuit and the remaining appellate courts as their caseloads increase. Notwithstanding this focus on the Ninth Circuit, the commissioners compiled a substantial amount of objective empirical data and some subjective information on the other …

Taking Regulatory Takings Personally: The Perils Of (Mis)Reasoning By Analogy, Michael Allan Wolf

Law Faculty Publications

In a troublesome area of the law, it is hard for a legal academic to resist the temptation to attempt to "enlighten" the judiciary. It has not been the author's practice to date, in ruminating on the profound puzzle of regulatory takings, to instruct judges concerning the errors of their ways. Because only an insider can be truly familiar with the nuances of a specific legal challenge and owing to a deep respect for the judicial craft, this writer has resisted the urge to preach. It has been a sufficiently provocative challenge to interpret the meanings and implications of decisions …

Judicial Selection At The Clinton Administration's End, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

During his presidency, Bill Clinton appointed almost half of the presently sitting federal appellate and district court judges. He, therefore, can justifiably claim that he has left a lasting imprint on the federal judiciary. During his 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton promised to choose intelligent, diligent, and independent judges who would increase balance, vigorously enforce fundamental constitutional rights, and possess measured judicial temperament. The initial achievement of the Clinton Administration in selecting members of the federal bench, who make it more diverse and who are exceptionally qualified, demonstrates that the President fulfilled these campaign pledges. President Clinton named unprecedented numbers and …