This Fair Courts E-Lert highlights President-Elect Joe Biden’s prioritization of professional diversity for judicial nominees, the potential breach of the federal judiciary’s case management/electronic filing system, and more.
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[FAIR COURTS]
Biden Administration Seeks Judicial Nominees with Professional Diversity
President-Elect Joe Biden sent a letter
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to Democratic senators over the holidays urging them to recommend candidates for district court vacancies by January 19, the day before his inauguration.
The letter, signed by incoming White House counsel Dana Remus, asked for nominees who are not just diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, or gender, but also “those whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench,” such as public defenders, civil rights attorneys, and legal aid attorneys.
Biden’s decision to emphasize professional diversity breaks with that of both President Trump
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and President Obama
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, who largely appointed judges with corporate law backgrounds.
In August of last year, the Center for American Progress found
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that nearly 70 percent of all sitting circuit court judges spent the majority of their careers as federal prosecutors or in private practice. The report also found that only three circuit court judges had spent their careers as public defenders, and only one worked as an attorney at a nonprofit.
Federal Judiciary’s Electronic Filing System Likely Breached by Cybersecurity Attack
On January 6, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts announced
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there was an “apparent compromise” of the federal judiciary’s case management/electronic filing (CM/ECF) system.
The potential breach seems to have been related to the SolarWinds hack
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, in which Russian hackers installed code into an update to the Texas-based SolarWinds software company, resulting in the infiltration of over half a dozen federal agencies
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As a result of the apparent hack, the Administrative Office is now requiring that all “highly sensitive documents” be filed in paper form or through a secure electronic device instead of CM/ECF. It is also working with the Department of Homeland Security on a security audit of the CM/ECF system.
While it is not yet clear what documents may have been compromised, Bloomberg News
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reports those documents could include a variety of sensitive materials, such as companies’ sales figures, contracts, and product plans, to psychiatric, financial, or medical information in criminal cases, and other health-care information for litigants in ongoing cases.
Texas Commission Issues Recommendations for Judicial Selection Reform
Last month, the Texas Commission on Judicial Selection issued recommendations for reforming the state’s partisan judicial election system. Texas is currently among only six states
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that select their high court judges via partisan elections.
The 15-member commission, created by the legislature following the election of 19 Black women to local judgeships
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in 2019, was tasked with studying how the state selects its judges, including those on the state’s supreme court.
During their meeting on December 18
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In a 64-page report
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, the commission said Texas should do away with partisan judicial elections but did not recommend a replacement system. The report also recommended creating new rules to further regulate the role of money in judicial elections but ultimately did not endorse any specific reforms.
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The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to reform, revitalize – and when necessary defend – our country’s systems of democracy and justice.
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
120 Broadway, Suite 1750
New York, NY 10271
T 646 292 8310
F 212 463 7308
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