Rise of Judicial Management in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas, 1955-2000University of Georgia Press, 2010 M07 1 - 576 pages This 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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... courts have not been well investigated by historians , especially in comparison to the historical focus on developments in the U.S. Supreme Court . Some histories have examined shifts in doctrine at the highest level of the federal ...
... court business. Article III of the U.S. Constitution protects judicial independence by providing that judges, “both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive ...
... court- ordered desegregation of public schools . During the 1930s the U.S. Supreme Court began striking down state - supported segregated schools , initially taking aim at law schools and other graduate programs . These cases laid the ...
... Supreme Court's wis- dom in relying on federal district judges like himself to enforce by court order the far - reaching social reconstruction that would be required to implement Brown.1 Allred was not a conservative who simply resented ...
... Supreme Court's desegregation opinion. Hence, they argued that Brown was not a significant case. Another distinction between these two cases—and the critical difference that explains the disparate reliance on Brown—was the race of the ...
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 |