Will Biden give California more judges? Sacramento trials are backlogged for years
Accused criminals are sitting in local jails for upwards of three years before they can get a trial. Judges have had caseloads at “emergency” levels for 20 years. Civil cases aren’t even getting hearings.
These are some of the huge problems at the Eastern District of California, the federal court where there are only six active judge positions to serve residents in a region covering Sacramento, Modesto, Fresno and Bakersfield.
Right now, the problem is even worse than usual because the court has two vacancies — leaving only four judges to cover the criminal and civil caseloads of 8.4 million people.
“We haven’t had a new permanent judgeship since 1978, and the population has doubled since then,” said Chief Judge Kimberly Mueller, who has been pleading with Congress for more judges. “It’s a problem that’s been going on for 40 years and been an emergency for 20.”
Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, is writing a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday asking him to “take swift action” to appoint two federal judges to fill the vacancies.
“The Eastern District of California is ranked second in their Circuit and eight nationwide in terms of productivity, measured in terms of cases closed per year,” Harder’s letter reads. “Yet, the court currently ranks 93 out of 94 for time to close criminal cases, with the median time from filing to disposition for criminal felony cases taking 20.6 months. Civil cases can take even longer to resolve, at times five years or more.”
While Mueller said it was critically important to get those two vacancies filled, that still won’t address key problems at the court. Each judge currently has a caseload of 1,095, which will decrease to 730 when the vacancies are filled.
That’s still well above what the federal government considers an “emergency,” which is 600 cases per judge.
And while criminal cases take an average of 20.6 months — and 55% of accused criminals in the district wait for their trials in local jails, rather than out on bail — Mueller said she knows there’s a significant list of cases that take three years and longer.
Prosecutors can’t take on new cases because they limit their caseloads. As a result, they decline additional federal cases and allow state courts to try them, where criminal penalties might be less severe. It also means alleged criminals who have plead not guilty are being denied their right to a speedy trial.
McGregor Scott, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District, said only judges can address criminal backlogs like that. He added that people accused of crimes are less likely to plead guilty when their cases languish.
“Anybody who has been in the criminal justice for any period of time knows it’s really the ability of judges to try cases that force guilty pleas on cases that are not going to trial,” Scott said.
“If there’s no urgency on the trial date, why would I plead guilty?” he added.
The court has been requesting more active judges for years, including asking Congress earlier in 2021 to add five more judges.
Adding more active judge positions to the federal court would take an act of Congress. And while the House and Senate have both held hearings on adding more federal judges to certain districts, no legislation has made significant progress. The last bill to add more judges was passed about 30 years ago.
The federal court in Fresno has a particularly exacerbated problem. With existing vacancies, there’s only one active federal judge handling federal caseloads that go through the Fresno court.
He spends four days a week in hearings on criminal matters, so civil matters are not currently eligible for hearings. Instead, he reads written briefs by the attorneys and makes a ruling without any oral arguments or in-person hearings. That’s been going on for about a year.
“He despairs that he’s had to let those go,” Mueller said. “But that’s the only way he can manage right now.”
Usually, courts can rely on senior judges to help with those caseloads. Judges are eligible to retire their official post and go on an “active senior status,” which means they take only take half the typical caseload for that court. But since the Eastern District of California’s caseload is so high, judges tend to retire under inactive status rather than continue taking on such high caseloads.
“Judges get burnout,” Mueller said. “Senior judges have to take half a caseload according to the district, which means in this district they get a normal caseload that is still above the national average.”
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, said in a hearing in February that there was “broad agreement” among both Democrats and Republicans that they needed to fix the problem. Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, and Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said the same in a hearing on the topic last year. But Congress has been swamped with the priorities of Biden’s new administration — confirming cabinet positions, passing COVID-19 relief and assembling an infrastructure bill next. This hasn’t gotten significant attention.
“Both senators acknowledged the overdue need. Our district was mentioned multiple times in the first five minutes,” Mueller said. “So we’ve been acknowledged, but how does the package come together?”
Sacramento Bee reporter Sam Stanton contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 11, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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