The Role of Magistrates - Essay Example

Running Head: The Role of Magistrates The Role of Magistrates [The [The of the The Role of Magistrates Any analysis of magistrates' roles in the federal courts requires an understanding of the tasks, interactions, expectations, and resources that comprise the working lives of these lower judicial officers. Unlike studies of judges, such as the work of John Paul Ryan and his colleagues on state trial judges, in which scholars describe and analyze the "typical workday" of the judicial officer, this study makes clear that there is no "typical workday for magistrates nationally. (John, 2000) The magistrate system was designed for flexible utilization by district judges according to the needs of their respective districts. In addition, control of the magistrates, including task assignments, has been left under district judges in order to preserve the constitutionality of the magistrate system through supervision by judicial officers. Thus, magistrates' assignments and the organization of their workloads can vary, sometimes dramatically, not only from district to district and courthouse to courthouse, but also among magistrates with offices along the same hallway in a single courthouse. (Carroll, 2003) Although they receive task assignments from district judges, magistrates, as judicial officers with their own legal and support staffs, retain at least some degree of autonomy in designing the organization of their workload. In fact, because they generally are not as involved with the time-consuming business of presiding over trials, events which require definitive scheduling in order to have parties, attorneys, witnesses, jurors, and other actors simultaneously present in one room, the subordinate judges frequently have significant autonomy in deciding when to address particular assigned tasks during their workdays. The magistrates generally are not responsible for prisoner cases. Habeas corpus and civil rights cases by prisoners are reviewed by two staff attorneys assigned to the district court. An experienced senior magistrate supervises these staff attorneys. Although this magistrate was laden with additional responsibilities, unlike in some other districts, he was not rewarded with the title "chief magistrate." After the initial screening by the staff attorneys, prisoner cases meeting procedural and legal requirements may be assigned by judges to their paired magistrates. A "duty magistrate" system developed for handling preliminary criminal matters. In the large court, magistrates are "on duty" for separate, rotating, one-week periods in which they have exclusive responsibility for processing the criminal cases. Thus, the magistrates normally handle criminal matters only once every five weeks. In the large court, criminal pre-trial matters, such as arraignments, bail reviews, detention hearings, initial appearances, search warrants, and arrest warrants, arise virtually every day. In addition, some of the judges have magistrates handle criminal pre-trial conferences to coordinate and settle evidentiary and other matters prior to trial. Magistrates in Action The following incident observed at the courthouse provides a picture of the magistrates at work as subordinate yet authoritative judicial officers. In the large courthouse, there is a daily "Duty Call" scheduled at one o'clock each afternoon to handle preliminary criminal matters. On this particular day, the district's magistrates held their regular monthly luncheon meeting, which did not conclude until 1:15. Afterwards, the duty magistrate talked with the author about the magistrates' roles for ten more minutes prior to entering the courtroom. Magistrates, like judges, recognize that lawyers and witnesses are frequently late in getting to court. Therefore, court proceedings generally do not begin and the magistrate or judge will not enter the courtroom until all other relevant actors are present. The magistrate's lack of concern about beginning precisely on time did not indicate callous indifference or an ego-motivated intention to be late. The magistrate acted as any judge does in seeking to have the court's business effectively accomplished, but not feeling rushed by any clock or supervisor. This judge-like behaviour, in recognizing that there would be no sanction or rebuke for not starting promptly, was evident in every district. When magistrates preside over a judicial proceeding, they are the judges for those proceedings and are therefore generally free to organize and run the events according to their own wishes. (Silberman Linda J. 2002) Prior to entering the courtroom, the subordinate judge encountered two plainclothes federal agents waiting in the reception area of the magistrate's chambers. The agents indicated that they needed to get an arrest warrant. The magistrate told them to wait in the courtroom and they would be handled first in the Duty Call. The magistrate entered the courtroom wearing a black robe, while a clerk-bailiff instructed everyone present to rise and then announced that court was in session. The magistrate was seated at the bench just like a judge. Although the magistrate system was designed for flexible use according to the needs of various districts, this emphasis on flexibility should not be mistaken for intent to encourage informality. During formal judicial proceedings in courtrooms, magistrates serve as genuine judges and therefore generally rely on all of the formalism and symbolism applicable to a federal judicial In less structured situations, such as conferences in chambers with attorneys, magistrates, like judges, develop their own styles and levels of formality in attempting to attain such objectives as encouraging settlements or scheduling discovery matters. In the courtroom situation, however, an uninformed passer-by would have no way of knowing that the black-robed figure issuing directives from the federal courtroom bench was a United States magistrate rather than a district judge--except in those few remaining districts in which judges refuse to permit magistrates to wear judicial robes. (Carroll, 1999) As the first order of business, the magistrate had the plainclothes officer swear out and sign the arrest warrant by literally reading him an oath in open court. With the careful formality of any judge, the magistrate served as the judiciary's check upon unrestrained police power for arrests. The second matter was the appearance of a defendant accused of violating the conditions of his probation. The accused allegedly failed to report a drunken driving arrest while on probation. The magistrate carefully read the defendant his rights and asked him if he understood. The magistrate then described the nature of the immediate proceedings for setting bond. As the magistrate proceeded, some confusion arose regarding whether the defendant had filled out the appropriate financial form to accompany his request for appointed counsel. The magistrate sharply chastised the government officials responsible for processing arrestees, speaking to the court generally but looking directly at the Assistant Attorney. A subsequent matter concerned a defendant in a narcotics case. This defendant was a middle-aged, naturalized citizen from Ecuador. The defendant told the magistrate that although Spanish was his native language, he understood English and did not need an interpreter. Despite his claims, his spoken English was difficult to comprehend. The defence attorney told the magistrate that he had explained to his client that the Government would not seek detention if the defendant will waive the preliminary exam. The interactions between the magistrate and the lawyers clearly demonstrated the assertion and acceptance of judicial power embodied in the magistrate. These subordinate judicial officials act as judges in conducting the activities within a courtroom through the use of discretionary judgments and reliance upon the accoutrements of judicial office. In addition, magistrates' authorized use of discretion in making judicial decisions has significant impact upon the lives of people drawn into the judicial system. In the foregoing example, the magistrate released the defendant under certain conditions for bail, but the magistrate also possessed the power, after holding detention hearings, to send unconvicted criminal defendants to jail while awaiting trial. The deprivation of liberty for unconvicted defendants is one of the most substantial powers granted to the judiciary in a system which formally presumes that defendants are innocent until proven guilty. (Herbert L. Packer, 1998) Magistrates and judges within the district assert that there are a variety of factors which underlie this unusual situation in which the district judges refuse to designate their subordinates to hear consent cases. First, the aforementioned concerns about constitutionality have led some judges to conceptualize a limited role as most appropriate for the magistrates. Moreover, there is agreement among a number of judicial officers that because the judges have taken formal votes on the question of designating magistrates, they have, in effect, adopted public positions on a particular policy--public in the sense that their colleagues are aware of how they have voted. Thus, the judges are placed in the position of rationalizing or defending their votes even though the original justifications for their votes have been swept away by appellate case decisions. Although the circuit courts have directly endorsed the designation of magistrates and the Supreme Court has left in place magistrates' consent jurisdiction by denying certiorari in the primary contested case, the district judges are free to manifest their opposition to magistrates' authority by refusing the designate the magistrates. Discussions and votes in district judges' meetings indicate that positions have hardened and that, contrary to the aspirations and expectations of the magistrates, the district has not moved any closer to explicit designation of magistrates for consent trial work. This tradition of not relying on other judicial officers carried over in the judges' attitudes about magistrates. Although they were eventually forced by the flood of filings to have magistrates handle Social Security appeals, several judges were reluctant to allow magistrates even to write recommendations in such cases. In addition, the chief judge for the district at the time when Congress first considered the magistrate legislation strongly opposed creating a new judicial office. The chief judge travelled to Washington to serve as a primary witness opposing the creation of the magistrate system in the Congressional hearings on the matter. This chief judge helped to set the tone for the district on the narrow characterization and utilization of the subordinate judges. (Sharyn Roach Anleu and Kathy Mack, 2005) When the magistrate system was first implemented nationwide in 1971, according to one judge, the magistrates were parcelled out in a penurious manner. The lack of authorized positions helped to form a limited initial role for the magistrate, because the judges had never utilized the magistrates in broader roles. (Sharyn Roach Anleu, 2007) As one magistrate described the situation, the district's judges have become "victims of their own experience." They are accustomed to the limited magistrate roles in the district and they are not open to suggestions about expanding the magistrates' authority in order to better utilize the lower tier of judicial officers. The pairing system for referring cases to magistrates helped to perpetuate the view that magistrates should act as subordinates with a very limited role. (Puro Steven, Roger A. Goldman, and Alice M. Padawer-Singer. 2001) In addition, one magistrate expressed the opinion that the judges have strong perceptions, which are essentially erroneous, that some magistrates are incompetent or lazy. Moreover, one magistrate expressed the suspicion that, at least for a few judges, there are elements of sexism and racism in judges' attitudes about the abilities of particular magistrates. The practice of assigning different tasks to magistrates based upon judges' perceptions of their abilities has been documented in other districts. As one chief judge wrote to the General Accounting Office, "some members of the Court believe that there is a substantial difference in the ability of the various Magistrates, which opinion in my judgment has serious impact on the individual Judge's decisions regarding the use of magistrates." (General Accounting Office, 2000) It is difficult to understand why the judges would not be able to get rid of any magistrate who was truly incompetent. Although no one seems to know of any magistrate in the country who was actually rejected upon application for reappointment, several instances are known of magistrates "encouraged" to retire at the end of their terms because the judges were not satisfied with their performance. It is possible that judges feel obligated to keep magistrates with whom they are dissatisfied in order to avoid conflict with other judges or the discomfort of rejecting a magistrate. As one magistrate described it, some judges have "self-esteem concerns" so that they "want to preserve their own status" against the perceived threat posed by the magistrates. The denial of designation and trial authority for the district's magistrates has several effects which shape the magistrates' roles. Several magistrates are appointed who have substantial experience and, most importantly, high expectations and ambitions about the role of the magistrate. As the magistrates continued to be assigned limited tasks, disappointment, frustration, and disenchantment were plainly evident in the magistrates' comments. Several magistrates accepted the position because they expected that the judges would eventually designate them to handle trials after the constitutional issues on the magistrates' authority were settled in appellate cases. When the district's judges maintained their firm stand against designation, the magistrates felt extremely disappointed. A high level of dissatisfaction with the magistrate position is discernible in several of the subordinate judges. Some of the district's judges have been disappointed in the quality of applicants for the magistrate position. The judges' comments have, in essence, confirmed the suspicions of the magistrate who said that judges view magistrates as insufficiently competent. When asked about whether higher calibre attorneys may decline to apply for the position precisely because of the limited authority granted to magistrates. The magistrates, who have regular contacts with their peers across the country through annual meetings sponsored by their circuit, the Federal Judicial Centre, and national magistrates' organization, recognize that their lack of designation is nearly unique. Thus, as one magistrate said, the lack of designation is a "slap in the face" by the judges. (John, 2002) Several magistrates feel that they have been publicly labelled as not competent to fulfil the complete range of duties authorized under the statute. There is often no room to make a judicial decision, even when the judge's orders will lead to an unjust result." This feeling of being slighted has been exacerbated by the behaviour of several judges. For example, at a formal dinner attended by judges, magistrates, lawyers, and influential public officials within the district, one judge gave a speech in which he said that administrative law judges, magistrates, and summary jury trials are the "work of the devil." According to a magistrate, this public condemnation of magistrates as a threat to federal courts could do nothing but diminish the possibility of magistrates ever attaining the status and respect appropriate for federal judicial officers. In addition to the primary manifestation of magistrates' lack of authority, namely the refusal to designate for consent trials, several judges persistently act to ensure that magistrates are not accorded the status of judicial officers. The district's court administrator and the magistrates' staffs have been told by judges and the judges' staffs that magistrates are not to use the title "judge," but one magistrate noted that the judges "would never have the guts to tell me that directly." Examples abound of instances in which the district's judges evinced great concern that magistrates not be accorded status and privileges. A judge became very upset once when a secretary made the mistake of creating an alphabetical list of the court's judges which mixed together the magistrates and district judges. In spite of the large courthouse setting that inhibited interoffice personal contacts and the dispersed district with three outlying courthouses, the magistrates organized themselves to have monthly meetings. At an informal level, the shared frustrations about lack of authority and status led the district's magistrates to joke with each other about their status and the judges in the district. The solidarity and communication between the magistrates has also led to organized efforts to increase their status and authority within the district. The magistrates have continued to discuss strategies for altering their roles within the district. They pool knowledge concerning which judges can be regarded as supporters or opponents on the designation issue. As the frustration continued and led several magistrates to consider the possibility of resigning, some magistrates toyed with the idea of symbolic actions such as having all or several of the magistrates simultaneously apply for a vacant bankruptcy judge position. The assumption underlying such an action would be that an overt expression of collective dissatisfaction would shake the judges into acting to avoid the possibility of losing several magistrates. The frustrations experienced by the magistrates illustrate the difficulties involved in developing a new judicial position. The incumbents' expectations about their status and roles are based upon the broad authority permitted under the magistrate statute, yet their subordinate position and the historical factors supporting a limited role within the district work to constrain further planned development of the magistrate position. Although the official low status of magistrates has a negative effect upon morale, the practical case pressures and informal practices within the district have operated to broaden the magistrates' actual authority and create opportunities for the subordinates to experience, at least on occasion, a full range of judicial tasks. These experiences have served to maintain the magistrates' high expectations despite the continued formal opposition by a majority of judges. The magistrates' roles continue to evolve, albeit slowly, in the direction of broader authority, but without being granted concomitant recognition and status, an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and conflict will remain among the judicial officers within the district. The creation of a new, subordinate judicial office within the courts represents a particular kind of reform intended both to increase judicial resources and to insure the flexible development and utilization of those resources. In the case of the U.S. magistrates, concerns about the constitutionality of implementing an authoritative judicial office. (Gibson, 2001) Although the district judges possess the formal authority to define the magistrates' roles, the ambiguous guidance from statutory sources and the judges' lack of experience with authoritative judicial subordinates created opportunities for other factors, such as magistrates' expectations and established practices within districts, to influence the development of the subordinates' roles within each courthouse. Some magistrates may be locked into specific roles because their supervising judges have firm opinions about how subordinate judicial officers ought to be utilized. Magistrates' roles can change, sometimes in ways that directly contradict the district judges' stated intentions, if there are shifts in the composition or quantity of case-processing demands upon the district court. Thus, the broad authority possessed by the magistrates makes them especially flexible resources whose responsibilities can adjust with sensitivity to changing judicial needs, regardless of whether district court officials have formally or rationally planned changes in the subordinates' roles. This adaptive quality of these broadly authoritative, subordinate judges creates the possibility that federal courts can respond flexibly to a variety of pressures without the infusion of resources necessary when the judiciary is composed only of actors whose responsibilities and authority, although somewhat flexible, are more precisely defined. For example, expectations about the proper judicial behaviour and demeanour for district judges, possessed by both the incumbents and the public, may limit or at least hinder judges' ability to facilitate case processing through informal mechanisms or other non-traditional means. By contrast, because the precise definition of the magistrates' roles is not mandated by statute, these subordinate judges can more easily assume independent case-processing responsibilities, assist the district judges, or initiate innovations in response to the courts' needs without clashing with firmly settled expectations. These benefits of flexibility are accompanied, however, by risks that the same adaptive qualities of these subordinate judicial officers will lead to roles and activities which slip beyond the control of the court or otherwise have detrimental consequences for the judiciary's intended purposes. As the discussion of the functional consequences for magistrates illustrated, there are particular risks from the introduction of a subordinate judicial officer that require continued scrutiny. Of particular importance is the risk of bureaucratization in which a hierarchy of judicial officers, making decisions beyond public scrutiny, changes the character of decision making from the expected ideal of individually considered judgments in each case to routinised, administrative processing of entire categories of cases. In addition, the risk from magistrates' latent functional consequence of coercing attorneys and litigants to consent to have cases heard by subordinate judicial officers, rather than constitutionally based district judges, contradicts congressional intent to protect litigants from undue pressure. As Seron documented with her Specialist characterization for one model magistrates' role, magistrates are often the judicial officers exclusively responsible for reviewing specific categories of cases, primarily prisoner and Social Security cases. There has long been a fear that specialization in the judiciary carries unwarranted risks. The implementation of a lower tier of judicial officers, namely the magistrates, would "create a dual system of justice" in which poor litigants would be deprived of their opportunities to have access to judges. (Holtzman, 1998) Moreover, it was feared that the routine nature of repetitive decision making in categories of cases will lead to less careful judgments. As one commentator has written, diligent and conscientious review of magistrates' reports must be emphasized, however, in order to avoid the danger that judges will simply' rubber stamp' the recommendations, especially since these cases tend to be rather routine. Alternatively, some have urged specialization as a means to more effective case processing. Magistrates, as experts on prison and Social Security law, for example, can presumably give faster, more accurate review to cases than judges or non-specialist magistrates who must start anew with each case. In a study of prisoners' habeas corpus cases, magistrates received a vote of confidence for fairness and effectiveness. And the use of magistrates has some clear advantages. In many instances, habeas corpus applications appear to receive fuller and more careful consideration than they did before the magistrates came into office. District judges, in turn, are relieved of a large share of a burden which they tend to regard as weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, and are able to focus on those few cases that raise important and difficult questions. (David L. Shapiro, 1993) The question remains, however, whether specialization and the wholesale delegation of categories of cases have adverse or beneficial consequences for the application of appropriate review to claimants' petitions. The evidence gathered through interviews and observations in this study's courthouses led to mixed conclusions. Overall, the evidence indicated that specialization has potentially harmful effects that must be monitored through special recognition and attention by the federal judicial officers. Several magistrates had a special interest in the law governing either Social Security or prisoners' cases, and therefore indicated that they gave consistently detailed attention to the cases because of their own personal interest. Several other magistrates placed a heavy emphasis upon Social Security cases because such claims are so important to the arguably disabled claimants, who need money to support themselves and their families. One magistrate asserted that each Social Security case is more important than any corporate litigation involving millions of dollars, because corporations write off some losses, but disabled people may need the few hundred dollars each month from Social Security in order to survive. These magistrates who indicated that they gave particular attention to each Social Security or prisoner case were in the minority. The general impression conveyed by most magistrates was that Social Security and prisoner cases are routine and burdensome, but unavoidable. When one reads prisoners' files, in particular, it is hard not to see that the assertions are often exaggerated, frequently not based upon appropriate constitutional claims, and usually in violation of some jurisdictional requirement. (William Bennett Turner, 1999) Magistrates frequently reverse administrative determinations from the executive branch in Social Security cases. It is viewed as "common knowledge" to some magistrates that administrative law judges are under extreme pressure to limit the number of decisions approving disability claims. Thus, administrative law judges are reportedly limited to approving only ten percent of claims, no matter what the merits of the cases before them. Some magistrates with this perception of the administrative law judges view themselves as having been "passed the buck" to make the actual determination about benefits and undo the damage caused by the internal restrictions within the Department of Health and Human Services. In this instance, magistrates not only do not mind making decisions against the executive, they view some of the administrative law judges as practically asking them to issue reversals in the interests of justice. In general, it appears that the judicial system has developed adequate means to protect the independence of magistrates' decisions which implicate federalism or separation of powers. As a practical matter, the district judges are available to back up any magistrates' decisions that will reach the outside world and bring the judiciary into conflict with other components of government. The real limitation upon magistrates' independence is not the other branches of government, but the district judges who wield such power over the magistrates' task assignments. The magistrates' independence may be curbed, but the outputs from the judicial system are preserved and protected because the judges can control task assignments and decisions. (Peter G. McCabe, 1989) Conclusion Magistrates are obviously important actors within the judiciary because of their decision-making authority and myriad functions for maintaining the judicial system. An understanding of the magistrates' roles and functions is especially important in light of their relative invisibility within the federal courts. Important discretionary decisions are made daily by a tier of subordinate judges who are not recognized or understood by the public. When political actors are beyond easy public scrutiny, there are always risks that their practices and actions will conflict with or have adverse consequences for the governmental principles, structures, and processes of the constitutional system. In the case of the magistrates, although their flexibility and adaptability create risks that their roles will evolve in unpredictable directions; these judicial officers have generally functioned within the limits of controllable expectations. Certain aspects of the magistrates' roles and functions, particularly decisions affecting categories of litigants and the coerced consents from litigants, deserve continued examination and monitoring. Overall, however, these anomalous judicial actors, who are subordinate yet authoritative judges, make valuable contributions to the operations of the judicial system. The magistrates have clearly become integrated as important functional components of the district courts whose influence and importance continue to develop and evolve. References Carroll Seron, 2003. The Roles of Magistrates in the Federal District Courts (Washington, D.C.: Federal Judicial Centre. Carroll Seron, The Roles of Magistrates: Nine Case Studies (Washington, D.C.: Federal Judicial Centre, 1999), 63n. 67. David L. Shapiro, "Federal Habeas Corpus: A Study in Massachusetts," Harvard Law Review 87 (1993): 366. General Accounting Office, 2000. Potential Benefits of Federal Magistrates System Can Be Better Realized (Washington, D.C), 70. Gibson James L. "The Role Concept in Judicial Research." Law and Policy Quarterly 3 ( 2001): 291-311. Herbert L. Packer, 1998. The Limits of the Criminal Sanction (Stanford: Stanford University Press University Press) Holtzman, Elizabeth U.S. Congress, House Report No. 1364, Magistrates Act of 1998, 95th Cong., 2d Sess., 1998, 42. John Paul Ryan, Allan Ashman, Bruce D. Sales, and Sandra Shane DuBow, 2000 American Trial Judges (New York: The Free Press), 18-21. John W. Cooley, 2002. "Designing an Efficient Magistrate Referral System: The Key to Coping with Expanding Federal Caseloads in the 1980s," Civil Justice Quarterly 1: 124-150. Peter G. McCabe, "The Federal Magistrate Act of 1979," Harvard Journal on Legislation 16 (1989): 343-401 Puro Steven, Roger A. Goldman, and Alice M. Padawer-Singer. "The Evolving Role of U.S. Magistrates in the District Courts." Judicature 64 (2001): 437-449. Sharyn Roach Anleu, "Magistrates, Magistrates Courts and Social Change" (2007) 29 Law & Policy 183-209. Sharyn Roach Anleu and Kathy Mack, "Magistrates' Everyday Work and Emotional Labour" (2005) 32 Journal of Law and Society 590. Silberman Linda J. "Masters and Magistrates Part II: The American Analogue." New York University Law Review 50 (2002): 1297-1372. William Bennett Turner, "When Prisoners Sue: A Study of Prisoner Section 1983 Suits in the Federal Courts," Harvard Law Review 92 (1999): 618. Read More