TRUMP TO CHOOSE 5 U.S. JUDGES IN S. FLORIDA
In the next few months, President Donald Trump is expected to name five new federal judges to lifetime appointments in South Florida — an unusual chance to shape the bench for decades to come.
Despite the opportunity, there are no controversial picks on the recently announced short list of 10 candidates for the vacancies in the Southern District of Florida, local attorneys say.
The finalists include one woman and nine men. Seven already serve as state judges on the bench in Broward and MiamiDade counties, one is the acting U.S. attorney in charge of all federal prosecutions in South Florida, and two are former federal prosecutors now in private practice.
They are: Broward Circuit Judges David Haimes and Raag Singhal; Miami-Dade Circuit Judges Antonio Arzola, Peter Lopez, Rodolfo ‘Rudy’ Ruiz, Rodney Smith and John Thornton; Acting U.S. Attorney Benjamin Greenberg; and attorneys Roy Altman and Melissa Visconti.
Experts say federal district judges — who handle criminal
and civil cases at the trial level and make findings of fact — have a huge impact on justice and are some of the most significant appointments a president gets to make.
“These trial judges are considered some of the most important judges in the system because they are the gateway and usually the endpoint in the federal justice system,” said Judith Resnik, a professor of law and expert on the federal judiciary at Yale University. “They have enormous power.”
They are appointed for life and can be removed only by impeachment and conviction. Including all federal judges who were commissioned through mid-November, active judges have served an average of 11 years, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. That figure rises to 18 years when senior judges, who handle a reduced workload, are included.
Their word is law most of the time because only a small percentage of cases are ever reviewed by federal appeals courts and the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear oral arguments in about 80 cases per year, according to the most recent statistics available.
“This is the president making a decision that will shape the law for decades,” Resnik said.
Trump is expected to appoint an extraordinarily large number of federal judges around the nation.
The Washington Post has reported that recent twoterm presidents have appointed between 329 and 383 federal judges apiece but Trump started out with about 100 extra vacancies. If he serves two terms with a Republican-majority senate and judges leave the bench at the same rate, Trump could appoint 450 to 500 of the 870 current positions. If he serves only one term and there are no new vacancies, he would likely appoint more than one-tenth of the bench, the Post reported.
Altman, 35; Arzola, 47; Greenberg, 45; Haimes, 52; Lopez, 59; Ruiz, 38; Singhal, 54; Smith, 42; Thornton, 65; and Visconti, 49, all declined to comment for this report.
The 10 finalists were selected from an initial field of 45 applicants, 24 of whom were interviewed in Miami last month by the federal judicial nominating commission.
That panel of local power brokers quizzed them about their qualifications and experience before cutting the list to 10.
The position pays $205,100 per year.
The busy federal district includes Broward, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Martin, Indian River, St. Lucie, Highlands and Okeechobee counties. Courthouses are located in Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Miami, Key West and Fort Pierce.
So far, nobody has raised any red flags about the perceived political leanings of any of the local candidates.
A recent analysis, conducted by the Associated Press, shows that 91 percent of Trump’s nominees to the federal courts are white and 81 percent are male.
The local shortlist is more ethnically diverse and includes several Hispanics, one African-American, and Broward County’s first Asian-American judge, local attorneys said.
“Replacing five judges at once is really an unbelievable change in terms of numbers but I don’t think lawyers and litigants are going to notice much of a change,” said David Oscar Markus, a respected local attorney who writes the Southern District of Florida blog. “This district has a long tradition of appointing state judges and many of the applicants this time around, like previous periods, come from the state bench … I do believe that the 10 finalists are very qualified and each of them would make fine judges.”
The next step involves those candidates being interviewed by U.S. Senators Marco Rubio, a Republican, and Bill Nelson, a Democrat, who then make their recommendations to the president.
Under normal circumstances, the president makes his nominations and they go to confirmation hearings in the senate.
Though it would be highly unusual, the constitution also gives Trump the power to ignore the shortlist and select his own nominations.
The buzz among local attorneys has focused on the fact that the shortlist includes just one woman and that most of the picks are perceived as Miami candidates.
Only three of them live in Broward County and none live in Palm Beach County though four of the five openings are to replace judges who hold court in the Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach courthouses.
The openings were created by the decisions of U.S. District Judges James Cohn, Joan Lenard, Kenneth Marra and William Zloch to take senior status. That allows them to continue working as judges but with reduced caseloads. The fifth opening was created by the elevation of Judge Robin Rosenbaum from district judge to the federal appeals court.
Some controversy also surrounds that fifth vacancy because Rubio blocked former President Barack Obama’s nomination of Mary Barzee Flores, a former Miami-Dade judge who is now in private practice, during the confirmation process last year. Barzee Flores is now running, as a Democrat, to replace U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Rubio and Nelson did not respond to requests for comment on the judicial selection process.
There is also a perception, among many local attorneys, that some judges do not want to be based in Fort Lauderdale’s federal courthouse, partly because of ongoing problems with the poorly designed and aging building, which is subject to frequent flooding and mold. A federal committee has placed a new courthouse for Fort Lauderdale third on the national priority list and it is being recommended for funding in the 2018 federal budget.