Release Date: June 24, 1996

Record-Setting Workloads Confront Federal Judges

Federal judges today are faced with unprecedented levels of work. Their daily challenges are compounded by the fact that no new judgeships at any level of the federal courts have been created in nearly four years. While there have been small declines in discrete areas of workload, by and large federal judges across the board and across the country are facing a greater number of cases this year than last and, in some instances, are encountering record levels of work.

"The demands placed on United States judges today are staggering," said Leonidas Ralph Mecham, Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. "Jurists at virtually every level of our federal system are facing a greater number of cases, which involve increasingly complex issues, explore novel areas of the law, and consume a larger portion of their time." The following are some examples.

• There were nearly 48,000 more cases filed in the U.S. district courts in 1995 than in 1990.
• The number of civil rights cases filed in U.S. district courts jumped 86 percent in the last five years. This increase, when weighted for complexity, equates to 55 judgeships solely to handle civil rights cases.
• During calendar year 1995 national filings for immigration-related offenses rose by 58 percent over the preceding year. In the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California alone, immigration filings nearly tripled over the past 12 months.
• Due in large part to breast implant litigation, the number of personal injury/product liability cases filed nationwide climbed 125 percent from the 12-month period ending March 31, 1995, compared to the corresponding period in 1996.
• Filings in U.S. bankruptcy courts are at record levels. In April 1996, monthly bankruptcy filings exceeded 100,000 for the first time ever. Annual bankruptcy filings likely will top one million in 1996--the highest level ever.
• Approximately one-third of all cases filed in the U.S. courts of appeals are prisoner petitions--jumping by nearly 4,700 over the past five years.
• The number of criminal cases filed in the U.S. courts of appeals has nearly doubled from 1987 until 1995.
• For the nation as a whole, three-judge court of appeals panels in 1995, on the average, considered 122 more cases than in 1990.
• There currently are 14 vacancies in the U.S. courts of appeals and 53 in the U.S. district courts. No federal judges have been confirmed since January 2, 1996.
• There have been no new appellate or district court judgeships created since December 1990 and no new bankruptcy judgeships established since August 1992.

The Administrative Office recently studied trends in civil rights filings and criminal immigration filings in U.S. district courts. The following are summaries of the findings.

Immigration

Criminal filings in federal district courts for immigration-related offenses such as reentry after deportation, drug smuggling, documentation fraud, and immigration smuggling jumped 58 percent during calendar year 1995. Of this increase in filings, 97 percent occurred in nine districts: the District of Arizona, Central District of California, Eastern District of California, Northern District of California, Southern District of California, District of New Mexico, District of Oregon, Southern District of Texas, and Western District of Texas. In the Southern District of California, immigration filings nearly tripled from 441 in 1994 to 1,222 in 1995. This trend in growth is expected to continue as the Department of Justice and Congress place greater emphasis on aggressive immigration policies and add to the number of border patrol agents.

Civil Rights

The rapid increase in the number of civil rights cases filed started shortly after the last Article III judgeship bill was signed into law in December 1990. In the previous five years, civil rights filings were relatively stable with only small fluctuations. The recent increase was driven largely by cases related to employment civil rights, which rose 126 percent from 1991 to 1995. Recent civil rights legislation--in particular the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990--is largely responsible for this increase. As stated above, when weighted for complexity, the increase in the number of civil rights filings equates to 55 district court judgeships and likely would have an impact also on the courts of appeals.

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