Federal Courts, Empty Benches: The Wednesday Vacancy Count 12/4/2013
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December 4, 2013
This week's Federal Courts, Empty Benches: The Wednesday Vacancy Count includes nominations, confirmations and vacancies from November 27, 2013 to December 3, 2013. Nominations, confirmations and vacancies occurring on December 4th will be reflected in the December 11th report.
The vacancy warning level remains at yellow this week after one new vacancy and no confirmations. The vacancy percentage rose to 10.9%. There were no new nominations this week, allowing the total number of nominees waiting for confirmation to remain at 52. The number of vacancies of Article III judges rose to 94 out of 865. A breakdown of the vacancies on each level can be found in the table below. For a more detailed look at the vacancies on the federal courts, see our Federal Court Vacancy Warning System.
Vacancies by court
| Court | # of Seats | Vacancies |
| Supreme Court | 9 | 0% or no vacancies |
| Appeals Courts | 179 | 10.1% or 18 vacancies |
| District Courts | 677 | 11.2% or 76 vacancies |
| All Judges | 865 | 10.9% or 94 vacancies |
New vacancies
Southern District of Illinois
Patrick G. Murphy
| On December 1, 2013, Patrick G. Murphy retired from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois after serving on the court for 15 years. Murphy was appointed by then President Bill Clinton in 1997 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April of 1998. He served as chief judge from 2000 to 2007. President Barack Obama nominated his successor, Nancy J. Rosenstengel, on November 7, 2013 prior to Murphy's retirement. The retirement creates one vacancy on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois and raises the warning level from green to yellow.[1] | 
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New confirmations
There were no new confirmations in the past week.
New nominations
There were no new nominations in the past week.
Weekly map
The weekly map is updated every week and posted here and on the vacancy warning level analysis page.
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See also
Footnotes
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