Rise of Judicial Management in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas, 1955-2000This is the first book-length study of a federal district court to analyze the revolutionary changes in its mission, structure, policies, and procedures over the past four decades. As Steven Harmon Wilson chronicles the court's attempts to keep pace with an expanding, diversifying caseload, he situates those efforts within the social, cultural, and political expectations that have prompted the increase in judicial seats from four in 1955 to the current nineteen. Federal judges have progressed from being simply referees of legal disputes to managers of expanding courts, dockets, and staffs, says Wilson. The Southern District of Texas offers an especially instructive model by which to study this transformation. Not only does it contain a varied population of Hispanics, African Americans, and whites, but its jurisdiction includes an international border and some of the busiest seaports in the United States. Wilson identifies three areas of judicial management in which the shift has most clearly manifested itself. Through docket and case management judges have attempted to rationalize the flow of work through the litigation process. Lastly, and most controversially, judges have sought to bring "constitutionally flawed" institutions into compliance through "structural reform" rulings in areas such as housing, education, employment, and voting. Wilson draws on sources ranging from judicial biography and oral-history interviews to case files, published opinions, and administrative memoranda. Blending legal history with social science, this important new study ponders the changing meaning of federal judgeship as it shows how judicial management has both helped and hindered the resolution of legal conflicts and the protection of civil rights. |
From inside the book
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... charged with administering federal jus- tice in the entire Southern District of Texas. Congress had authorized only four judgeships by 1960. By 2000 the Southern District boasted nineteen seats, making it one of the largest federal ...
... charged with little or no responsibility for the factual aspects of the case or for shaping and organizing the litigation for trial . ” In public law litigation “ the object ... is the vindication of constitutional or statutory policies ...
... charged the nation's federal district judges with monitoring the progress of desegregation. The decision directed judges to use “equitable principles” and to “take into account the public interest” when rendering judgments in cases ...
... charged cases as something of a cooling - off period . The first thing that he sought to accomplish in the HISD case , for example , was to persuade the plaintiffs to with- draw their motion for an injunction until he convened a formal ...
... charges of barratry, that is, soliciting clients, against the civil rights group. These charges did not amount to much in the courts, but the necessity of defending against the attack depleted naacp funds and diverted energy from ...
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
Legislation Litigation and Judicial Economy | 50 |
The Rules and Exceptions of Border Justice | 93 |
Managing Our Federalism in the Southern District | 140 |
Judicial Management of Triethnic Integration | 189 |
Federal Criminal Justice on Trial in the 1970s | 233 |
Adjuncts and the Oversight of Corporate Misconduct | 281 |
Masters Magistrates and Managerial Judges | 327 |
Just Speedy and Inexpensive Resolutions | 355 |
Notes | 359 |
Selected Bibliography | 521 |
Index | 547 |