Eastern District judges beg Congress for reinforcements

Judges in the Eastern District of California unanimously signed a letter to Congress pleading for legislators to increase the number of federal judgeships and to expedite the replacement of two judges who plan to leave by early 2019.

The letter is the latest and most urgent appeal over how to cope with the sprawling district’s case backlog. The Eastern District is the geographically largest of California’s four districts, stretching south from the Oregon border to Bakersfield and east from the coastal range to Nevada. It encompasses 87,000 square miles and 34 counties.

Judges in the district have said for years they rank among the busiest in the nation. There are six Article III judges in the Eastern District, compared to 14 in the Northern District.

Chief Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill wrote that his district’s backlog has been neglected for too long and the impending departure of two judges could lead to “serious and catastrophic consequences.”

O’Neill added that the average workload in the district is 900 cases, “more than double the nationwide average caseload.”

Failure by Congress to act before the judges depart could make the courts inaccessible to millions of people, he wrote.

O’Neill said in an interview Tuesday that this was the first time the district has gotten all of its judges to take this kind of collective action. The judges come from a wide variety of legal backgrounds and getting them all to agree on something is nearly impossible, he said. But in this case, he said, it was easy.

“This task was not so difficult because the problem is so obvious and so catastrophic,” he said.

The district’s population has more than doubled since the last judgeship was created in 1978. O’Neill wrote that the Northern District has more than twice as many judges as the Eastern District, despite their populations being very similar in size.

The Eastern District has benefited from judges being willing to continue carrying heavy workloads after taking senior status but O’Neill contended that lifeline is about to run out as the three remaining senior judges pare down their workload or mull retirement.

The combination of those factors with the other two impending departures could be catastrophic, leaving the court with 2,000 cases to redistribute to the remaining judges, on top of their already unwieldy workloads, he wrote.

The judges contended in their letter that this is not a new issue or much of a surprise. The Administrative Office of the Courts has recommended the addition of four to six judges for more than a decade, but those positions were never created.

O’Neill said the office has helped over the years by authorizing an unusual number of magistrate judges in the district and the 9th Circuit has lent a hand by encouraging its members to take turns as visiting judges in the district. But he said those were short-term solutions that won’t be sufficient as the situation continues to degrade.

Even when judgeships become available, the heavy workloads associated with the district seem to deter some potential applicants. In 2012, members of then-Sen. Barbara Boxer’s judicial nomination committee said they were having difficulty finding applicants. They had only heard from four interested people, months after U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii took senior status.

O’Neill said the court has been helped by judges like Ishii who decided to stay very active under senior status but the heavy workload in the district is dissuading other judges from taking that path.

“By the time a judge gets to either retirement age or senior status, you’re seeing judges who frankly are worn out,” he said.