By bringing their nationwide challenge to mifepristone in Amarillo, Texas, where it could only be assigned to one of the country’s most visibly anti-abortion federal judges, the anti-abortion activists behind the ongoing effort to revoke the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of the popular (and safe) abortion-related medication unwittingly drew the public’s attention to the problematic practice of “judge shopping.” In response, Democrats in Congress are finally pushing back against the increasingly common practice. The only question is whether they’ll be able to persuade any of their Republican colleagues that the rise of judge shopping is bad for the public’s faith in all judges — those appointed by Democrats and Republicans alike.
Judge shopping is bad for the public’s faith in all judges—those appointed by Democrats and Republicans alike.
As I explained in an earlier column, federal courts in the United States have relatively generous rules about where lawsuits can be brought. Such rules encourage “forum shopping” where plaintiffs pick where to file their claims often because they believe the overall composition of the bench might be more likely to agree with their arguments.
In recent years, though, some litigants have gone beyond general forum shopping and begun “judge shopping.” That is, they’ve been filing claims in “single-judge divisions” where one judge hears every new civil case filed in a geographic subdivision of a federal district court. In those single-judge divisions, there’s no mystery as to who will hear their case. This kind of shopping, although not specifically prohibited, has historically been disfavored — because it undermines, or, at least, can undermine, public confidence that the dispute is being resolved by a neutral arbiter. Imagine how little faith we’d have in the outcome of NBA and NHL playoff games if individual athletes or teams picked the referees.
There’s been a recent and dramatic…
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