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Federal Courts, Empty Benches: The Wednesday Vacancy Count 9/7/2011
September 7, 2011
- For a District by District break down, see: Federal Court Vacancy Warning System
The current vacancy warning level for the U.S. Federal courts is set at Yellow and is unchanged from last week, leaving the total at 91 and leaving approximately 10.5% of the total Article III posts currently unfilled. The vacancy information for the various court levels is as follows:
| Key: | |
| (Percentage of seats vacant.) | |
| 0% | 1%-9% |
| 10%-24% | 25%-40% |
| More than 40% | |
| Supreme Court | 0% or no vacancies |
| Appeals Courts | 10.1% or 18 vacancies |
| District Courts | 10.7% or 73 vacancies |
There are currently 9 Supreme Court posts, 179 appellate court posts and 680 district court posts for a total of 868 Article III judges. This count includes four temporary posts, one each in the Northern District of Alabama, District of Arizona, Southern District of Florida and the Central District of California. This also includes a shared post between the two Missouri districts and counts it as two posts with separate vacancies. There are currently 57 pending appointments in the Senate leaving 37% of the vacant posts without an appointment. So far this year there have been 34 confirmations.
There was no activity for the federal judiciary this past week. In light of this lack of activity, we would like to call your attention to a graphic published by the White House Press corps and discuss President Obama's nominations up till now.
Monthly map
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Info-Graphic
On August 17, the White House released this informative infographic to highlight some of the trials faced by the current administration with regard to the nomination and confirmation of judicial positions. We will discuss each section of the info-graphic independently.
Diversity on the bench
As the graphic shows, Obama has made unprecedented changes towards a more diverse federal bench that more carefully reflects the demographics of the United States. He has raised the number of female confirmations from 23% and 29% in the Bush and Clinton years respectively to 47% under his administration. He has also increased the numbers of African Americans, Hispanics and Asians on the court. The Obama administration also records a number of notable firsts including:
- The first Latina on the United States Supreme Court
- The first openly gay man confirmed to a federal district court. (J. Paul Oetken)
- The first female nominees of Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese descent
Nomination process
As this section highlights, of the 155 nominations that President Obama has submitted, only 97 have been confirmed. This low number comes despite the fact that all of the Obama appointees were rated as Well Qualified or Qualified by the American Bar Association and 93% have received bipartisan support in committee. Despite this overwhelming support, 20 nominees are still awaiting senate votes and 10 would fill judicial emergencies.
Delays
These delays, while not uncommon, have increased slightly for the current administration. Currently only 62.9% of Obama's appointees have been confirmed. This is lower percentage than most recent administrations with George W. Bush at 82.8% and Bill Clinton at 84.2%. In addition, the average wait between a judiciary committee vote and a senate vote for a judicial appointee to the circuit court is 151 days, compared to 29 days during the Bush administration. For district court nominees, the time period is almost as bad, at 103 days, compared to 20 days under Bush.
The results
In problem the most telling section, the White House highlights the drastic impacts these delays have on the federal judiciary. Startling figures include:
- Judicial vacancies have grown from 55 in 2009 to 91 in 2011
- 15.9% of Civil cases in 2010 had wait times of over 3 years
- The federal government spent over $1.4 billion in 2010 to incarcerate inmates before their trials even occurred.
These statistics indicate a serious problem with the confirmation process and the serious problems that will result from it. This comes after three weeks of Senate inactivity and five new vacancies. If the Senate continues on this trend the federal judiciary and the average citizen seeking justice will suffer because of partisan politics.
See also
Footnotes
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