The Judiciary Act of 1789, which gave birth to the federal courts, created a simple three‐tiered judicial system staffed by six Supreme Court justices and thirteen district court judges. Over the years, the judiciary grew as the nation expanded. By 1990, with ninety‐four district courts and twelve regional circuit courts, staffed by 743 judges as well as a number of more specialized tribunals, the federal court system became a complex operation with an annual budget in excess of $1.7 billion. Inevitably, such growth has spawned an administrative bureaucracy.
The emergence of administrative structures, however, was slow in developing. The judiciary operated in a very decentralized fashion. There existed no central arm of the judicial branch to exercise administrative or policy‐making authority. The Department of Justice, a unit of the executive branch, performed all administrative functions that were necessarily national in scope.
Concerned about the court system's lack of integration, Chief Justice William Howard Taft lobbied Congress for the creation of a single agency to aid in communication, coordination, and policy making for the judiciary. Congress responded in 1922 by establishing the Judicial Conference of Senior Circuit Judges. The conference, chaired by the chief justice, consists of the chief judges of each circuit, the chief judge of the Court of International Trade, and an elected district judge from each circuit. Now known as the Judicial Conference of the United States, it has evolved into the judiciary's central policy‐making organ and is the court system's primary liaison with Congress. The conference formally meets twice annually, but functions throughout the year through a system of some twenty‐five committees that focus on matters of special administrative and policy concern.
In response to heated political battles between the judiciary and the executive branch over the administration of the courts, Congress in 1939 created the Administrative Office of the United States Courts and in so doing granted the judiciary its administrative independence. With an annual budget in 1990 of $34 million, the administrative office provides the fiscal, clerical, and management services necessary for the national operation of the federal courts.
In 1967, Congress added a third unit to the national judicial bureaucracy, the Federal Judicial Center. This organization carries out training, research, and development programs for the courts. It has been particularly effective in sponsoring seminars and continuing education programs for newly appointed and veteran judges and in conducting research on methods of improving the administration of justice.
The judiciary's centralized bureaucratic machinery focused almost exclusively on administrative matters until 1984, when because of growing concern over disparities in criminal sentences, Congress created the United States Sentencing Commission. The commission was empowered to promulgate mandatory sentencing guidelines. This was the first agency in the judicial bureaucracy to exercise a degree of control over the actual decisions of federal judges. The commission's constitutional validity was upheld by the Supreme Court in Mistretta v. United States (1989).
In spite of the centralizing influence of these bureaucratic units, the lower federal courts remain localized, and the norm of judicial independence remains well entrenched. Each of the twelve circuits has authority to handle matters of circuit administration and policy. The primary decision‐making entity is the Circuit Council, a body whose membership includes both court of appeals and district court judges. The councils exercise wide ranging authority over the federal courts of the circuit and make recommendations to the Judicial Conference when problems extend beyond the region, or when a congressional response is required. Within each council rests the authority to monitor judicial conduct and to take appropriate action when disability occurs or discipline is required. These powers were approved by the Supreme Court in Chandler v. The Judicial Council of the 10th Circuit (1970) and later codified with passage of the Judicial Councils Reform and Judicial Conduct and Discipline Act of 1980.
Rapid increases in litigation have necessitated the creation of additional administrative positions for the lower federal courts. Since 1971, each circuit has been authorized to appoint a circuit executive, a professional judicial administrator who, at the council's directive manages the circuit's nonjudicial operations. At both the court of appeals and district court levels there is support personnel to assist in the processing of judicial business, including court clerks, marshals, magistrates, staff attorneys, law clerks, and clerical staff. These expansions in the judiciary's administrative apparatus have prompted some observers to caution against an excessively bureaucratized judiciary, a condition under which judges must devote greater amounts of time to managing staff and caseload and less to their essential judicial duties. Such a situation may lead to an increasingly impersonal and inflexible judiciary in which the processing of cases takes priority over the quality of the justice rendered.
See also Administration of Federal Courts; Circuit Courts of Appeals; Lower Federal Courts; Workload.
Bibliography
- Peter Graham Fish, The Politics of Federal Judicial Administration (1973)
— Thomas G. Walk
