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New article on the Emergency Court of Appeals

Hi, if anyone has any information on the history and operations of this court, I invite you to please add it to this article. Online sources are particularly scarce. --Eastlaw talk ⁄ contribs 07:40, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I am definitely going to look into this one. bd2412 T 18:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps we should merge Emergency Court of Appeals and Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals, since both courts covered essentially the same jurisdiction? bd2412 T 19:16, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
I've seen references to this court in biographies of appeals judges who were designated to sit on it. I'll try to add a few references when I have a chance to look them up, though I'm afraid it won't be imminently. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

John Marshall GAR notification

John Marshall has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 07:38, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Standardization of table formats for district court pages

I recently started updating some district court pages (e.g. N.D. Ga) to list current/former judges using Template:Start U.S. judgeship Current and Template:Start U.S. judgeship Former. These templates have been around for a few years and are used throughout all the circuit court pages, so I figured it made sense to start porting the district court pages. However, I recently noticed that for some district courts (e.g. D.R.I. [1]) the tables have been changed from the templated versions to the hand-crafted sortable tables similar to the ones used throughout the "List of federal judges appointed by..." series of articles. Additionally, E.D. Mo. uses a pared down table to list current judges on the main court page and then links to more comprehensive tables.

Before I make any more changes, I'd like to try to arrive at a consensus as to how we should present info on judges. I prefer the templates. They make it easier to visualize the current composition of a court (including any vacancies), and they avoid duplication of information that is scattered throughout the "List of federal judges appointed by..." articles. In order to improve cross-referencing, however, I recommend changing the "Appointed by" link to point to the "List of federal judges appointed by..." article rather than the article for the president (e.g. "Appointed by" Clinton, not Clinton). In the case of E.D. Mo., which has achieved good article status, the main article would remain unchanged and List of judges for United States district courts in Missouri would be updated to use whatever standard we settle on. Thoughts? Billyboy01 (talk) 05:37, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Some questions on this. Where does the "duty station" info come from? I was under the impression that judges within a district might change duty stations from time to time. Does the # column just reflect the number of the judge in terms of overall order of appointment? I suppose the templates you prefer could be augmented to include full dates, rather than just years, although I don't consider that a necessity. I agree to linking to the "List of federal judges appointed by..." pages as well. bd2412 T 16:56, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
I wouldn't advocate including full dates on the court pages. It's hard enough to keep this info current on the appointment pages; having the same info in two places is redundant and seems like a long-term maintenance nightmare. Regarding the # column, you're correct. FJC lists all the judges that have served on a given district in the order which they were appointed. For duty station, I have been using the location of a judge's chambers as listed on the various district court websites. I'm not sure how often they change and don't have a strong feeling about whether this info needs to be included; it just happened to be part of the templates. For the "former judges" template, however, I would like to remove the state info. This is useful for circuit courts but seems silly for district courts. This is actually already possible for the column headers by specifying {{Start U.S. judgeship Former|district=1}}, but this parameter doesn't seem to be in place for Template:U.S. judgeship row Former. Is anyone handy enough with templates to update this without breaking it for the circuit court pages? Billyboy01 (talk) 01:51, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Since the # column is just a chronological ordering, a sortable table deals with that by itself. Are there seat numbers on the district courts as there are on the Supreme Court, where occupancy of a particular seat can be traced through successive seat-holders? bd2412 T 17:02, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't know if the seat numbers are official, but I believe it is possible to trace succession as you describe. Billyboy01 (talk) 19:17, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Some district court pages include magistrate judges in table format (e.g. C.D. Cal). I think the appropriateness of including this info for all district court pages hinges on the outcome of the notability discussion below. Billyboy01 (talk) 05:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. If they are not inherently notable, there's not much more reason to have such a list than to have a list of clerks (who also do research and draft decisions) or docket secretaries. bd2412 T 15:34, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I took the one item of consensus to emerge so far and linked all the circuit court pages to the "List of federal judges appointed by..." pages rather than the president bio pages. Billyboy01 (talk) 19:53, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Excellent. bd2412 T 00:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Notability of U.S. Federal Judges

Are U.S. Magistrate Judges and U.S. Bankruptcy Judges inherently notable?

There have been a few AfD noms recently of U.S. Magistrate Judges and U.S. Bankruptcy Judges, which (so far as I know) have been kept due to other indicia of notability (involvement in important cases, authorship of textbooks, etc.). Should this project, which would be responsible for overseeing such articles, take a position on the notability of these judges? And if so, what position should we take? bd2412 T 00:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

  • Here are some points that must be weighed:
    1. Unlike Article III judges, and certain Article I judges, neither U.S. Bankruptcy Judges nor U.S. Magistrate Judges are appointed by the President of the United States, or require the approval of the United States Senate.
    2. On the other hand, these offices are held by persons who have demonstrated sufficient ability to merit the support of the district courts which hire them, and which bestow upon them a good deal of responsibility for making determinations.
    3. Many such judges are deeply involved in deciding issues arising in multi-billion dollar litigation, important constitution cases, and other matters which are themselves notable.
    4. However, no Magistrate Judge or Bankruptcy Judge can bind the parties to a judicial finding unless the parties agree in advance to be so bound; absent such agreement, all decisions must be bounced up to an Article III judge for the official decision, and the Article III judge owes no deference to the judge below.
  • Those are the significant issues that I feel weigh for and against the notability of U.S. Bankruptcy Judges nor U.S. Magistrate Judges. bd2412 T 01:09, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
    • As a technical point, your last bullet point is not completely right as to Bankruptcy Judges. Under the 1984 amendments to the jurisdictional statute adopted in light of the Northern Pipeline case, Bankruptcy Judges have the authority to enter final decisions (as opposed to recommendations) in "core" controversies, which extend to most (though not all) of the business before them. Their decisions in these matters is subject to appeal (usually to either the District Court or a Bankruptcy Appellate Panel), but it is a final decision in the meantime. Only in "non-core" matters is the Bankruptcy Judge limited to submitting a recommendation to the District Court. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:13, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Based on the foregoing, I think we are basically in agreement that U.S. Magistrate Judges and U.S. Bankruptcy Judges are NOT inherently notable, and that any such person would require additional evidence of notability to merit inclusion in the encyclopedia. bd2412 T 01:01, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Are U.S. District Court Judges and U.S. Court of Appeals Judges inherently notable?

Since User:BD2412 opened the discussion immediately above on magistrate judges and bankruptcy judges, I would also like to note that I opened a similar discussion on U.S. District Court and Court of Appeals judges, which I am now moving here before it develops further. A current draft guideline Wikipedia:Notability (law) proposes that occupants of these positions are not inherently notable; the only inherently notable only occupants of the federal judiciary are Supreme Court justices.

I strongly disagree with the premise that federal judges are inherently notable only if they reach the U.S Supreme Court. In my view, every Article III judge, whether on a District Court, Court of Appeals, or Supreme Court is inherently notable. This is a position that requires Presidential nomination and confirmation by the Senate. Federal judges at all levels have lifetime tenure. At the court of appeals level, they decide cases that set binding precedent for a half-dozen or so states. I consider them all sufficiently notable for a Wikipedia article, just by virtue of having attained the position.

My comment above does not extend to non-Article III "judges" such as bankruptcy judges, magistrate judges, patent law judges, administrative law judges, etc. Some of those may be notable, but they are not inherently notable by virtue of their position. TJRC (talk) 00:26, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I would say that any judge who is appointed by the President of the United States, and whose appointment requires approval by the United States Senate, is inherently notable. This includes some Article I judges, such as those on the Court of Federal Claims and the Court of Veteran's Appeals. To even come to the attention of the President as a potential nominee for such a position is, I think, a shorthand acknowledgment that the nominee has achieved some level of renown in their field. bd2412 T 01:03, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
I concur with TJRC: Article III judges are inherently noble, magistrate judges need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Billyboy01 (talk) 05:09, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
How about intermediate cases like the judges of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims? bd2412 T 05:12, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
My initial thinking on Article I judges is that they also need to be individually evaluated. I don't believe Presidential appointment itself confers notability (there are many deputy positions that are/were held non-notable people), nor do I believe Article I judges are necessarily notable. In fact, according to this article it's not even clear that all Article I tribunals are notable. Billyboy01 (talk) 05:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
If we can establish the notability of the tribunal, does that suffice to establish the notability of the judges appointed to it? Note that some Article I tribunals have judges appointed by the President, while others are appointed from within lower agencies. bd2412 T 02:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I would not think so. Tribunals are stable, long-term entities. The occupants of the judges on it may be transitory and many. I think the question of notability of a tribunal is distinct from the question of the notability of its judges. I would be hard-pressed to think of any tribunal on the federal level that I would not regard as sufficiently notable to merit an article, should someone take the time to write one. I realize that many such articles would be so short that it might be more economic to merge them into another related article (e.g., a cabinet department under which it is constituted), but that's a matter of content, not of notability. TJRC (talk) 02:26, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Independently of argument here, in practice every US District court judge that has been nominated for AfD in the 3 + years I have been here has been kept, and this establishes very firmly what the general consensus is. I think similar rank in special courts or tribunals would find the same result also. Just which courts qualify might be left to the individual afds. DGG ( talk ) 05:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to circumvent the AfD process for persons holding positions to which we can agree as to notability. For example, United States Tax Court judges are nominated by the President to fifteen year terms, and confirmed thereto by the Senate; they can thereafter be renominated for a second term. There is an example of an Article I judge that has a very long term (inherently outlasting the appointing President), in a tribunal with a substantial amount of power. bd2412 T 05:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Redheylin (talk · contribs) has proposed a possible merge of articles North Carolina v. Alford (1970 Supreme Court of the United States case), with the form of guilty plea it spawned, Alford plea. Discussion is at Talk:North_Carolina_v._Alford#Contradiction_tag. Thank you for your time, Cirt (talk) 14:55, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Please also see Wikipedia:Content_noticeboard#Tags_at_Alford_articles. Cirt (talk) 05:16, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. bd2412 T 18:35, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

List of United States federal judges by longevity of service

Moved from User talk:BD2412

Good job starting List of United States federal judges by longevity of service. I can think of a couple more that qualify, and will add them when I have time, but...

Should the list be sorted by total tenure (including senior status)? I believe so, because it's possible for a judge to sit on a bench for only twenty years and have senior status for another twenty (though that would make them pretty old). I know there's no "page ownership", but as you're basically the only person who's edited the page, you would be the one with the most input.

Cheers! Star Garnet (talk) 07:46, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem with senior status is that a judge can (or at least could, in the past) do virtually nothing judicial and still be in senior status. I think the rules on workload and availability have changed a bit over the years, but the only way to be sure that a judge was actually hearing cases is if they were active to the end. bd2412 T 15:30, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Wouldn't that disqualify the four judges from Browning downward? And even if a judge is still "active", there have been times when judges have been incapacitated for up to a decade while being "active". Star Garnet (talk) 23:40, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Well therein lies the rub - some judges in senior status have maintained full dockets for decades after their "retirement" until the day they died. All we have to go on, in most cases, is the dates of service. bd2412 T 00:00, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Yet if that's what we have to go on, should those such as Garth, who only served "actively" for 17 years be included? It actually doesn't seem to me to matter if they are inactive seniors. The court docket for judges such as Potter was as low as three cases per year, so I'm not sure if activity is a relevant matter, as it is uncomparable. Star Garnet (talk) 01:35, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps the page should be extended/limited to all judges who served thirty years as an "active" member? Or thirty-five, if the number is too great. Star Garnet (talk) 01:36, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
I had started to do it at 35, but found the number there was still out of hand. I agree, however, that it is problematic to list dozens of judges who were active for fifteen or twenty years, and then in senior status for thirty. bd2412 T 02:20, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Would it work to simply include those who were active for 30 or 35 plus years? And exclude those whose senior time put them over the finish line? i.e. If it were 30 years, Garth and Campbell would not be included. Star Garnet (talk) 06:20, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
It might work if we had a higher threshold for combos. For example, 35 years of active service or 30 years of active + 10 years senior, 25 years active plus 20 years senior, and so forth. If we do that in increments of five, requiring an additional 10 years of senior service for ever five fewer years of active service, that gets us to the point where a judge with 15 years of active service would need 40 years of senior service to get on the list, and I don't think any judge has ever done that. bd2412 T 05:00, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Edward M. Chen

As a heads up, there has been some back and forth on Edward M. Chen concerning article content and, more recently, Chen's notability. You can find discussions here and here. Billyboy01 (talk) 16:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the note - we must be watchdogs over articles on judicial nominees of either party. It sometimes seems that those who oppose the nominating president will pick one nominee's name out of a hat, and make wild and unsubstantiated charges against that nominee to create an issue where none exists. bd2412 T 16:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Nomination date clarification

Upon close of the 1st session of the 111th Congress, the Senate returned the nominations of Louis Butler and Edward Chen to the White House. Obama will need to resubmit these nominations if they are to receive further consideration by the Senate (the other pending nominations were carried over to the 2nd session by unanimous consent). Assuming the nominations are resubmitted, which nomination date should be listed: date of initial nomination, or most recent nomination? I think the date of initial nomination provides the most useful information (e.g. we can tell which nominees were held up the longest), and that's what I would recommend using throughout the article series.

Note that for other articles in the series, we've been using the date of most recent nomination. For example, George W. Bush first nominated Priscilla Owen, Susan Bieke Neilson, and David McKeague in 2001, but their nominations were returned by the Senate and resubmitted by Bush multiple times before they were finally confirmed in 2005. The Bush article lists their 2005 nomination dates rather than 2001 nomination dates, which I find a little misleading. Billyboy01 (talk) 06:31, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. If the nomination is returned, that means it has failed; the only nomination to be counted is the one that succeeds to an appointment. bd2412 T 15:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Given the failure of the 2009 Butler/Chen nominations (i.e., they're no longer pending), I've removed them from List of federal judges appointed by Barack Obama. We can reintroduce them if/when they're renominated. Billyboy01 (talk) 02:18, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
If they are not renominated, then we should still collect the information somewhere - history is as likely to benefit from a list of rejected Obama nominees. We have by way of comparison, George W. Bush judicial appointment controversies and the like. bd2412 T 03:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Sherman Minton

Hello, I am currently improving Justice Sherman Minton. If anyone would like to offer advice or suggestions, or help with improving it, it would be much appreciated. —Charles Edward (Talk | Contribs) 01:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject United States courts and judges/courthouses

I've moved in about a hundred courthouse descriptions from the GSA, which are in the public domain, and only require a bit of formatting and tweaking to be ready for moving to article space. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:21, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Phillip S. Figa

Former District of Colorado judge. His page was recently deleted for "copyright problems". Does anybody have experience reinstating an article that has had to overcome possible copyright issues? Billyboy01 (talk) 06:54, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

  • If a copyvio-free version exists in page history, that version (and all non-copyvio including edits used to create it) can be restored. If not, then we must start from scratch, but can certainly have the article. bd2412 T 13:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Article for Deletion

The following AfD may be of interest to editors here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sessions of the United States Supreme Court -Rrius (talk) 01:55, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Diane Wood

At Diane Wood, part of this project, a discussion is occurring as to the of necessity of including 13 references in the lead for the proposition that a person has been mentioned as a potential nominee for the Supreme Court. -Rrius (talk) 01:04, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment on federal courthouse naming conventions

This discussion is intended to resolve our disparate treatment of names of United States federal courthouses. (See Category:Federal courthouses of the United States).

Generally, where a courthouse is formally named for an individual, this is easily resolved by using that official name:

With respect to these listings, the primary question I have is how these buildings should be default-sorted (by full name or surname of the person for whom they are named).

For courthouses known primarily by their geographic location, there are some different presentations in use:

Compare:

With:

In theory, we should eventually have articles on every purpose-built United States federal courthouse, including those wherein a particular city has had multiple courthouses over time. Our naming scheme should accommodate this possibility. My preference, incidentally, would be to spell out "United States" wherever it is used. That being said, what naming conventions should be adopt with respect to these buildings? bd2412 T 02:14, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there can or should be a firm naming convention on this? Wikipedia's disparate treatment of courthouse names is due to the simple fact that the real world does not have a set way to name these buildings. You are trying to impose order where no order exists. Blueboar (talk) 15:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for opening this discussion! Hope my following comments help. --doncram (talk) 16:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
About "Jr." in names: Your example "Lewis F. Powell, Jr. United States Courthouse" seems to be misnamed. It should be either with two commas or no commas around "Jr.", as in "Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Courthouse" or "Lewis F. Powell Jr. Courthouse". The incorrect grammar of one-comma around "Jr." often appears in the National Register of Historic Places' NRIS database, and WikiProject NRHP editors routinely correct this. It often seems to be a typo introduced in database entry. Often/usually the actual full NRHP nomination documents show correct usage, using two commas consistently. (With respect to the NRHP database usage, correspondence is underway (slowly) to see to corrections of all the entries; see below.) --doncram (talk) 16:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
About sorting order: For buildings of name format "Firstname Lastname Building", it is acceptable and best to sort by lastname. The NRHP list-articles by state and county are done this way. This differs than the case for ships: a ship named "Firstname Lastname Ship" should be sorted by the first appearing word. That is a very hard and fast practice on ship-naming. There were old discussions about this in WikiProject NRHP archives, I expect. --doncram (talk) 16:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
About "U.S." vs. "United States": I personally don't have strong feelings about this. If the common usage for a named place is clear, that is what should be followed. It is not right, IMO, to impose order in wikipedia naming of places in order to tidy up the inconsistent world out there. In a single article that lists places, you are free to impose an apparent order by using pipelinks, but the actual articles should be named any which way is their common usage name. This is reflected in practices on naming lighthouses and train stations and other places where there are one or more official ways of naming them (e.g. U.S. Coast Guard list somewhere vs. NRHP database, which often contradict) as well as local practices. It may not be easy to determine what is most common local practice, however. So for most NRHP places, the official NRHP database name is usually used, with over-ride to a different name if different local practice becomes known. If there is an apparent typo in the NRHP database, I and others note that in a process of correspondence to the National Register (see wp:NRIS info issues, in order to bring about an actual corrective change in the NRHP database. Given that is in progress, we go ahead and use the corrected name in wikipedia article name. About U.S. vs. United States, I would not be willing to argue with the National Register that one or the other is actually incorrect and should be changed. So, therefore, I lean towards saying whatever is used as an NRHP name is acceptable, and should not be changed to the other version without documentation that it is actually used in local common practice or in some other official naming system. --doncram (talk) 16:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for your commentary. I agree with respect to the sorting order, as these buildings often come to be known by the surname, as in "the Douglas Building". I may not have forecast this effectively, but one great concern I have is whether buildings should be at names such as Laredo United States Post Office, Court House and Custom House or at United States Post Office, Court House and Custom House (Laredo, Texas). Each has its benefits and drawbacks, but since I am not aware of there being an official style or a prevalent common usage, I think our presentation should be uniform, for organizational clarity. bd2412 T 22:14, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
By the same stroke, should United States Post Office and Court House (Davenport, Iowa) be at Davenport United States Post Office and Court House, and so forth? bd2412 T 03:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Let me put it this way: would anyone object if I move all the articles having (city, state) as a disambiguator to titles beginning with the city name? bd2412 T 22:25, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, i object. That would be making up names which are not the actual names of the places, and imposing an artificial naming system of your own which meets your personal criteria for neatness in naming, etc. In general we do not do that in wikipedia. Instead we name things what they are named in the real world and only add a differentiating phrase in parenthesis, as in (City, State), if there are multiple places of the same name. We use disambiguation pages to list all the alternatives. If you want to make a coherent naming system within just one or a few list-articles of courthouses, you can accomplish that using pipelinks. That way you can impose your preference for appearance of names within the list-article without changing actual article names. The question of whether your names are accurate names allowable to be presented that way could be deferred. It could be left to, say, a Featured List candidacy discussion later.
One reason for wanting not to allow you to impose your naming system, is that it is not the only nice naming system. You might imagine some editor in one city, say Cleveland, who wishes to impose a made-up naming system that works very well for naming every building in cleveland. That editor would be equally well entitled to impose the wonderful-in-some-respects naming system upon the Cleveland courthouse buildings. Another set of editors who could be equally well entitled as you, are the NRHP-focused editors, including me. We have a great naming system: use the official NRHP names of places. Why should your system trump that?
These are my quick comments. I may not have considered all you have to say, and what your problems are here, so I may want to come back later and perhaps come at it differently. I'll try to re-read what you've written, look at the list of U.S. courthouses, and think about it a bit more. --doncram (talk) 22:43, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I just feel that our current naming scheme (which is none at all) appears somewhat disjointed. I suppose we could solve search issues with redirects, but just looking at Category:Federal courthouses of the United States makes me feel a bit befuddled. bd2412 T 22:53, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, the category provides a way for readers to navigate to the main List of United States federal courthouses and to Category:Lists of federal courthouses of the United States by state. Otherwise the category serves editors (yourself, mainly?) who could periodically ensure that all courthouses added to the category get covered in the lists. That's enough purpose for the category, IMO. I don't use categories much for navigation, myself. --doncram (talk) 07:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
True, but the main List of United States federal courthouses is, to be generous, probably about one third done (and many of the state lists are only half done). On the other hand, consider the person who has neither the list nor the category at hand, and merely wishes to find out information about their local historic courthouse. How do they find it in here? bd2412 T 15:08, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
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