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Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson announced in August 2023 she would be taking senior status as a federal judge in Indiana’s Southern District Court.
At the time, Magnus-Stinson told Indiana Lawyer she was doing so in part to help bring another full-time judge into the Indiana Southern District and also ease the district’s weighted caseload numbers with that judicial addition.
Magnus-Stinson assumed senior status in July. But there has been no nominee announced to fill her vacancy on the district court, and there won’t be one this year.
The Indiana Southern District vacancy is one of 40 federal judicial vacancies nationwide still pending, as President-elect Donald Trump and a new U.S. Senate—with a Republican majority—prepare to take office in January.
Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond School of Law professor, said he didn’t know why there hadn’t been a nominee announced for the vacant Indiana Southern District judgeship.
“It’s just strange. They had time,” Tobias said.
Once Trump assumes the presidency in January, Tobias expects the White House counsel to take the lead on filling any judicial vacancies.
Tobias said the Office of Policy Development also will help with judicial nominees.
Senate moves to fill some vacancies
Since Magnus-Stinson’s announcement, the U.S. Senate confirmed Indiana Northern District Judges Cristal Brisco and Gretchen Lund in January, filling two vacancies on that court.
That same month, the Senate confirmed Judge Joshua Kolar to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Senate announced in November that it won’t hold votes on four of President Joe Biden’s appellate court nominees as part of a deal with Republicans to allow for speedier consideration of other judicial nominations and bring Biden within striking distance of the 234 total judicial confirmations that occurred during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term.
The number of judges confirmed under Biden totaled 221 at the time.
A Senate Democratic leadership aide has said a time agreement has been reached to allow for consideration of seven district court judges from Biden the week following Thanksgiving, the Associated Press reported.
Plus, another six district judges would be placed on the Senate executive calendar, making it possible for them to be considered on the Senate floor in December.
John Collins, an associate professor at George Washington University Law School, said there’s not enough time left to fill Indiana’s district court bench vacancy, given that there has not been a nomination announced.
Collins pointed out that the Senate Judiciary Committee typically waits 28 days after receiving paperwork to even begin considering nominations.
He said he, like Tobias, didn’t know what specifically happened that resulted in no nominee being put forward in Indiana’s southern district this year.
It could have been there was a “wait-and-see” approach to how the elections would turn out, Collins said.
Now, with the Republican Party gaining control of the White House and Senate, as well as the pace Trump is announcing Cabinet nominees, Collins said he doesn’t expect it to take too long in 2025 to fill judicial vacancies.
“I would think vacancies will be filled quickly,” Collins said.
JUDGES Act could result in more judgeships
While the federal courts wait on the pending judicial vacancies to be filled, a bill designed to boost the number of federal district judges in the most overworked regions of the country is awaiting a House vote after it unanimously passed in the U.S. Senate.
Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, co-sponsored the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved (JUDGES) Act of 2024.
Young first introduced the legislation in 2020 and re-introduced it in 2021 and 2023.
The proposed law would act on the findings in the nonpartisan 2023 Judicial Conference of the United States report by creating the recommended 66 new judgeships, including one in the Southern District of Indiana, during future presidential administrations.
Additionally, the bipartisan bill includes new transparency requirements and provisions to ensure greater access to justice in certain high-need areas of the country.
As of March 31, 2023, there were 686,797 pending cases in federal district courts across the country, averaging 491 filings per judgeship over a 12-month period.
The Indiana Southern District would be part of the first tranche of newly-created judgeships under this bill.
Matt Lahr, Young’s communication director, said the senator is hopeful that the JUDGES Act will still pass Congress this year.
“Should the bill become law, we will evaluate candidates for the Indiana judgeship it creates and hope to have the vacant seat filled as soon as possible following the President’s inauguration next year,” Young said in an email to Indiana Lawyer.
The Indiana Southern District court released a statement in November urging the passage of the bill.
The court noted that federal courts face a worsening shortage of Article III judges.
In Indiana’s southern district, the weighted caseload for this past year ranked 19th in the U.S. and third in the Seventh Circuit.
Heavy caseloads are a longstanding issue in the district.
Indiana’s southern district has maintained a weighted caseload per judgeship much higher than the national average over the last decade—between 23% and 78% above the general standard.
The current weighted filings per active judgeship is 689 (574 excluding a multidistrict litigation case), which is 60% higher than the standard for establishing additional judgeships, according to the district court.
“The strain of operating in excess of full capacity for an extended period of time continues to exhaust the ability of judges and staff to respond in a timely and appropriate fashion to the cases that are filed here and further hinders the court’s ability to respond to its caseload efficiently,” Indiana Southern District Chief Judge Tanya Walton Pratt said in a written statement. “In the end, it is the litigants of the Southern District of Indiana who suffer when there is a delay in deciding their cases. As such, the Southern District of Indiana urgently needs the additional judgeship that the JUDGES Act would provide.”
The Subcommittee on Judicial Statistics first recommended the addition of a temporary judgeship to the Indiana southern district in1996.
Tobias said there’s a need for more judgeships.
He said the last comprehensive bill that provided for the expansion of federal judgeships was passed in 1990.
As part of the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990, Congress created 11 new circuit judgeships, 61 new district judgeships, and 13 temporary district judgeships.
Collins said House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has publicly announced that the JUDGES Act would be given a vote on the House floor.
“There’s no reason for them to oppose more judgeships being created,” Collins said.
The law professor added that he expects the bill to be passed and signed into law.•
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