Eastern District of California, reeling under its load, requests additional judgeships

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California carries one of the heaviest caseload in the country.  According to the District, the population served has grown 220% in the last four decades.  But no new judgeships have been created in the Eastern District in that time.  Now, the Eastern District is asking for help to address what it warns will be the "catastrophic consequences" of inaction.  Read the letter from the Judges of the Eastern District of California to members of the Senate and House of Representatives here.

At both the state and federal levels in California we demand too much from our courts and provide too little support.  If you happen to have the ear of a member of the Congress or Senate, put in a good word for the Eastern District.  I restate my long-standing position that inadequate support and funding of the judicial branch is an unconstitutional infringement on a co-equal branch of government.

By the way, however bad you imagine the situation is in the Districts with the worst loads, it's worse.  The Eastern District has 1,229 pending cases per judge as of March 31, 2018.  See, Federal Court Management Statistics.  (For a real horror show, imagine being one of the 5 Judges in Indiana - Southern, with over 1,400 cases each, and it is only the third worst in the country.)  And the Eastern District is about to be hit with a one-two punch of judicial retirements and a marked increase in federal prosecutions now that the U.S. Attorney's office has increased staff.

Note:  the statistics cited in the Eastern District's letter vary slightly from the officially reported data, but the difference seems insignificant.