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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... continued to play, in school desegregation. Peltason called his now-classic 1961 book Fifty-eight Lonely Men.53 What follows presents evidence that appears to contradict that title, because it shows that, once theBrown decisions were ...
... continued race-based segregation even after Brown condemned it as unconstitutional. In Texas, as in most southern states, there were only two racial categories, “colored” and “white,” and the relevant statutes de- fined the “colored ...
... . Ballots served supporters of continued segregation in other ways . Segregationists had revived the notion that a state legislature could overturn a federal law or even a court ruling that THE VARIETIES OF SCHOOL DESEGREGATION 21.
... continued peace and quiet. The uncomfortable fact re- mained, however, that he offered these optimistic remarks in response to renewed complaints.92 When African American parents regarded the success of school desegregation in Houston ...
... continued to apply the criteria for separation indiscriminately , 128 When Mexican Americans in California filed the next important suit in 1946 , this time in a California federal court , 129 linguistic segregation of Mexican Ameri ...
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 |