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
Results 6-10 of 85
... plaintiffs asked Connally to order desegregation in hisd to begin by September 1959.77 Instead, the judge ordered the board to report its progress in August 1959. Henry Peterson, the board's latest president, finally admitted to the ...
... plaintiffs in the still open hisd litigation.93 Connally, as directed by Brown II, kept jurisdiction in the case, and he con- vened hearings to assess the new complaints. The Allen school officials admitted that “it was not unusual to ...
... plaintiff makes timely appli- cation for enrollment, the question presented here will not arise again.”95 The judge also had to hear from several other new plaintiffs who had joined the revived Ross case. One hisd policy under attack in ...
... plaintiffs do not seek the same treatment as is afforded white students , to which they are entitled . " Instead ... plaintiff's request to declare the board in contempt for evading the 1960 order and declined to enjoin HISD's rules . 99 ...
... plaintiffs in the Driscoll cisd suit did not seek to appropriate either constitutional principles or procedural lessons from the two Brown decisions. The Mexican Americans' lawyers in the Driscoll case, in fact, consistently and ...
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 |