Judicial Conference adopts rule to curb judge shopping

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Judicial Conference adopted a new policy on Tuesday to combat judge shopping, implementing a random selection process for cases seeking state or nationwide injunctions. 

The policymaking body for the federal courts said the action prevents litigants from using single-judge districts to effectively choose the judge that will hear their case. Randomized selection is already used in 94 federal district courts but others assign cases based on where it is filed. 

Recent examples of this include the abortion pill case before the Supreme Court this term. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine was incorporated in Amarillo, Texas, months after the justices’ ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Woman’s Health Organization. Amarillo is a single-judge division, guaranteeing the case would be put in front of Matthew Kacsmaryk. 

Kacsmaryk also presided over Texas' lawsuit that forced the Biden administration to restore the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” immigration policy. The Supreme Court ultimately overturned Kacsmaryk’s ruling but the administration had to abide by his order for almost an entire year. 

The conference’s new policy is limited to cases involving state or nationwide relief — like both the abortion and immigration cases. 

“The idea behind this most recent amendment is to say we get the idea of having local cases resolved locally, but when the case is a declaratory judgment action, national injunction action, obviously, the stakes of the case go beyond that small town or that division,” said Judge Jeffrey Sutton, Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and the chair of the digital conferences executive committee. 

Sutton said the policy was geared toward national injunctions, which have increased in the last decade. 

“I actually think the story is about national injunctions,” Sutton said in a media briefing. “That's been a new development the last 10 years, or maybe the last two or three administrations, where that has become a thing. It makes sense that some advocates are going to do the best by their clients, and you can understand how some of those pressures work depending on who's running the administration.”

The policy will not prohibit single-judge divisions from issuing national injunctions, however cases will have to go through the random selection process to avoid litigants attempting to put their case before a favorable judge. 

The policy is effective immediately but it is unclear when courts would begin implementing these procedures or how that process would work. Sutton said a memo would be circulated to federal judges by the end of the week. The chief judges will then have to meet to discuss the change. 

The full language of the policy has not yet been published. It is expected in the Judicial Conference’s March proceedings, which will be published in a few months. 

Follow @KelseyReichmann

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