On March 12, 2024, the Judicial Conference of the United States, the advisory body for the federal judiciary, announced a new policy to discourage “judge-shopping.” This new policy will require random judicial assignment among all judges in the federal district for cases with nationwide or statewide implications.
Federal trial level courts are divided into districts, and some of those districts are further split into geographic divisions. Many divisions are staffed by a small number of judges, often only one or two. Each district has the discretion to develop its own rules for case assignment. Prior to Tuesday’s policy announcement, many districts allowed litigation filed in federal district court to be assigned to a judge in the geographic division in which it was filed. If a division only has one judge, then that judge may be assigned all cases filed in that division. This policy allows plaintiffs to effectively hand-pick their preferred judge to decide their case by filing in a single-judge division.
In recent years, an increasing volume of cases have been filed in single-judge judicial divisions seeking nation-wide injunctions of federal policies. These challenges include many high-profile challenges related to abortion, healthcare policy, and immigration. Many of these cases were brough in federal court in Texas, and the plaintiffs in those cases requested the judge in that division enjoin the federal government from implanting the challenged policy.
In response to this growing practice, the Judicial Conference has issued this new policy requiring any civil actions seeking to bar or mandate state or federal actions by declaratory judgment or injunctive relief to be randomly assigned between all judges in the federal district in which the case was filed, meaning that plaintiffs could no longer hand pick a judge in a single-judge division. In support of this policy, the Conference noted that the value of trying a civil case in the nearest geographic division becomes less important when the impact of the ruling might be felt statewide or nationwide. Chief Judge Sutton of the Sixth Circuit, explained, “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.” District courts may continue to assign cases to a single-judge division when the cases do not seek state- or nation-wide injunctive or declaratory relief.
On March 14, 2024, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), sent a letter to chief judges encouraging them to ignore the conferences’ directive, arguing it is Congress’s authority to determine how cases should be assigned in lower courts. The Judicial Conference responded with its own letter to chief judges clarifying that the policy is guidance setting out various ways for courts to align their case assignment practices with the long-standing Judicial Conference policy of random case assignment, not a mandate. The clarification stated that the new policy should not be viewed as impairing the courts’ authority or discretion.
The Judicial Conference policy is available here.
