A Wall Street Journal editorial correctly decried this, and a letter writer to the news outlet’s Letters section correctly included the Northern District of Texas as a particular judge shopping target for bringing suits convenient to the Trump administration. The letter writer also pointed out that, as an attempt to mitigate, if not eliminate judge shopping, the Judicial Conference of the United States, strongly discourag[ed] the practice, and some Federal districts changed their rules to enhance random assignments of their judges—but those rules are District by District.
Lost in this kerfuffle (cynically so, say I given that judges as a group surely know better) is a nation-wide requirement of centuries-long standing [emphasis added]:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed….
And
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved….
For those of you following along at home, those are from our Constitution’s 6th and 7th Amendments, respectively.
For the quibblers of the lawyer class, the latter is easily extensible by statute to explicitly require the civil suit to occur in the State and district wherein the [cause of the tort] shall have [first occurred].
The ability of Congress to make such a thing explicit is in this nation-wide requirement of equally centuries-long standing:
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
The District courts, as creatures of Congress, have their jurisdictional authorities set by Congress. This Congressional power over jurisdictional authority extends to the Supreme Court [emphasis added]:
…the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
Again, for those of you following along at home, those are from our Constitution’s Art III, Sect 1, and Art III, Sect 2, respectively.
All that’s required to eliminate judge-shopping is a renewed respect for and enforcement of our Constitution.
