|
 |
|
|
| |
A United States Magistrate Judge is a federal trial judge appointed to serve in a United States district court for a term of eight years. He or she is appointed by the life-tenured federal judges of a district court, District Judges, who supervise the activities of the Magistrate Judges by assigning civil cases for jury or non-jury trial upon consent of the parties and for pre-trial matters. Similarly criminal cases are assigned to Magistrate Judges on the consent of the parties, except for the trial of felony cases.
The current Magistrate Judge system was begun by Congress in 1968 expanding on the 175 year old United States commissioner system. The Magistrate Judges are appointed based upon the recommendations of a citizen's merit screening committee. In 2002, in addition to the 486 full-time Magistrate Judge positions authorized there were 51 part-time judges and 3 combination Clerk of Court/Magistrate Judges who serve four year terms.
It is the policy of the Judicial Conference of the United States to oppose restrictions on the utilization of Magistrate Judges by the district courts, Long Range Plan for the Federal Courts. This flexibility enables the courts to manage increasing caseloads with limited resources.
For the 12 month period ending September 30, 2002, magistrate judges performed 880,129 judicial duties, a 0.7 percent increase over the previous 12 month period. Among these were 298.109 civil pretrial duties, including 191,984 motions, 24,420 settlement conferences, and 55,371 other pretrial conferences.
|
|
|
Enter your login and password to enter secure site for Judges only.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Open Magistrate Judge Positions |
|
 |
They also performed 138,504 felony pretrial duties (a 9.2% increase), including 85,693 motions, 13,532 pretrial conferences, and 1,899 evidentiary hearings.
Magistrate judges terminated 12,710 civil cases with litigants’ consent in the 12 month period ending September 30, 2002, an increase of 5.7 percent over the previous 12 months. During the same 12 month period magistrate judges conducted 472 civil jury trials and 487 civil trials without jury. This use of magistrate judges to resolve civil cases, facilitated by means such as including them in a court’s civil case
|
|
assignment system, has been a key component of many courts’ efforts to make the best use of judicial resources.
Magistrate judges performed 0.7 per-cent more judicial duties in the 12 month period ending September 30, 2002. Magistrate judges submitted 25,235 recommended dispositions in prisoner cases (habeas corpus and civil rights). They completed 6,654 reports and recommendations in social security appeals. They disposed of 72,109 misdemeanor and petty offense cases. Magistrate judges conducted 293,002 felony preliminary proceedings, 2.3 percent more than the previous 12 months. Magistrate judges’ volume of detention hearings (among the lengthiest of felony preliminary proceedings) reached 43,198 in the 12 month period ending September 30, 2002, an increase of 9.5 percent.
|
|
Home
