United States magistrate judge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the United States federal courts, magistrate judges are judges appointed to assist a United States district court judges in the performance of their duties. Magistrate judges are authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 631 et seq.
While federal district judges are nominated by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate for lifetime tenure, magistrate judges are appointed by a majority vote of the federal district judges of a particular court and serve terms of eight years if full-time, or four years if part-time, and may be reappointed. As of January 2009, Congress has authorized 466 full-time and 60 part-time magistrate judgeships, and three positions combining magistrate judge and clerk of court.[1]
Magistrate judges are sometimes considered "federal judges" and sometimes are not. To more clearly distinguish between magistrate judges and district court judges, magistrate judges, bankruptcy judges, and certain other judges of limited tenure are sometimes referred to as being "Article I judges," while lifetime-tenure district court and courts of appeals judges and Supreme Court justices are referred to as "Article III judges." This stems from the United States Constitution, in which Article III establishes judges who "shall hold their Offices during good Behavior"—i.e., for until death, retirement, or elevation to a higher court except in cases of impeachment—and Article I, which allows Congress to establish courts and judgeships of limited jurisdiction and with fewer privileges, whose decisions are appealable to the Article III courts).
Magistrate judges conduct a wide range of judicial proceedings to expedite the disposition of the civil and criminal caseloads of the district courts. Congress set forth in the statute powers and responsibilities that could be delegated by district court judges to magistrate judges. To achieve maximum flexibility in meeting the needs of each court, however, it left the actual determination of which duties to assign to magistrate judges to the individual courts.
Occasionally Presidents will nominate magistrate judges for district judge vacancies. The Federal Magistrate Judges Association is the professional association for magistrate judges.
Contents |
[edit] Authority
The authority that a magistrate judge exercises is the jurisdiction of the district court itself, delegated to the magistrate judge by the district judges of the court under governing statutory authority and local rules of court. In criminal proceedings, magistrate judges preside over misdemeanor and petty offense cases, and as to all criminal cases (felony and misdemeanor) may issue search warrants, arrest warrants, and summonses, accept criminal complaints, conduct initial appearance proceedings and detention hearings, set bail or other conditions of release or detention, hold preliminary hearings and examinations, administer oaths, conduct extradition proceedings, and conduct evidentiary hearings on motions to suppress evidence in felony cases for issuance of reports and recommendations to the district judge.
The Supreme Court has held that federal magistrate judges may accept guilty pleas and has held in Peretz v. United States that magistrate judges may supervise the jury selection in a felony trial unless one party objects.[2]
In civil proceedings, magistrate judges typically manage discovery and other pretrial matters. They are authorized to issue orders in pretrial matters as long as the order is not dispositive of the case as a whole (such as an order granting summary judgment). They may also be assigned to write reports and recommendations to the district judge as to dispositive matters. With the consent of the parties, they may adjudicate civil cases in the same manner as a district judge, including presiding over jury or non-jury trials.
[edit] Review by an Article III tribunal
Because Article III of the United States Constitution vests the judicial powers in courts to which the judges are appointed for life (and which are therefore called Article III tribunals), decisions of a magistrate judge are subject to review and either approval, modification or reversal by a district judge of that court, except in civil cases where the parties consent in advance to allow the magistrate judge to exercise the jurisdiction of the district judge. The magistrate judges therefore operate under the authority of Congress to appoint "inferior courts", set forth in Article I, making them Article I tribunals.
The Supreme Court most thoroughly delineated the permissible scope of Article I tribunals in Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co.,[3] striking down the statute that created the original U.S. bankruptcy court. The Court noted in that opinion that the framers of the Constitution had developed a scheme of separation of powers which clearly required that the judicial branch be kept independent of the other two branches via the mechanism of lifetime appointments. However, the Court also found that Congress has the power under Article I to create adjunct tribunals, so long as the "essential attributes of judicial power" stay in Article III courts. This power derives from two sources. First, when Congress creates rights, it can require those asserting such rights to go through an Article I tribunal. Second, Congress can create non-Article III tribunals to help Article III Courts deal with their workload, but only if the Article I tribunals are under the control of the Article III Courts. The magistrate judges fall within this category of "adjunct" tribunals. All actions heard in an Article I tribunal are subject to de novo review in the supervising Article III court, which retains the exclusive power to make and enforce final judgments.
The Supreme Court later noted, in Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Schor,[4] that parties to litigation could voluntarily waive their right to an Article III tribunal, and thereby submit themselves to a binding judgment from an Article I tribunal.
[edit] History
The office of United States magistrate judge was established by the Federal Magistrates Act of 1968.[5] Its foundation is the United States commissioner system, established in 1793. Commissioners were previously used in federal courts to try petty offense cases committed on federal property, to issue search warrants and arrest warrants, to determine bail for federal defendants and to conduct other initial proceedings in federal criminal cases. The Federal Magistrates Act of 1968, as amended, was enacted by the Congress to create a new federal judicial officer who would (1) assume all the former duties of the commissioners and (2) conduct a wide range of judicial proceedings to expedite the disposition of the civil and criminal caseloads of the United States district courts.
In 1979, Congress expanded federal magistrates' authority to include all misdemeanors recognized by the federal criminal code. Magistrates' titles changed again in 1990, when they became "magistrate judges," symbolizing the ever-increasing importance of their work. The system has worked relatively well in the last 30 years, and has tended to shift the federal courts' caseload to the desired balance. Some legal observers have criticized the increasing powers of magistrate judges, who are neither appointed by the President nor confirmed by the Senate. On the other hand, the selection of a magistrate judge is a merit-based process which, by statute, requires public notice of a vacancy and the appointment of a merit selection panel which includes both lawyers and at least two non-lawyers. The panel is required to consider the attributes of each candidate, including scholarship, experience, knowledge of the court system, and personal attributes such as intelligence, honesty and morality, maturity, demeanor, temperament, and ability to work with others. Applicants for the post must be personally interviewed and recommended for the position. Magistrate judges are compensated at a slightly lower scale than district judges and do not benefit from the full array of benefits accorded to district judges, so increased magistrate judge involvement in judicial matters has a cost-savings effect for the federal courts.
With the caseload of the federal courts increasing steadily, it is likely that magistrate judges will continue to wield considerable authority in the federal court system.
[edit] References
- ^ Magistrate Judgeships, Federal Judicial Center, accessed January 18, 2009.
- ^ Peretz v. United States, 501 U.S. 923 (1991) (Magistrates may supervise jury selection for a felony trial with consent of the parties).
- ^ Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50 (1982).
- ^ Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833 (1986).
- ^ Pub.L. 90-578, 82 Stat. 1107 (1968), codified as amended at 28 U.S.C. § 604, 631-631, and 18 U.S.C. § 3401–3402
