Notes
Well, this is a Legal Nice Times! For federal court cases involving statewide or nationwide requests for declaratory judgments or injunctive relief against the federal government, those cases must now be “randomly assigned” to one of ALL the judges in a Federal District, rather than in a specific Division. So, no more filing cases in Amarillo, just so you can be assured that a Christofascist like MattyK decides the case.
In case you’re not familiar with the federal district court system: Each state has one or more federal “District,” and within each District, there are generally multiple “Divisions.” Each Division is where the actual federal courthouse is located, and covers a specific geographic area (generally multiple counties).
In a state like Texas - which is large both geographically and population-wise - there are 4 Districts (Northern, Southern, Western, and Eastern). And each of those Districts has multiple Divisions, so litigants and jurors don’t have to travel for hours to get to the nearest courthouse. For example, the Southern District of Texas has 7 Divisions, including large ones like Houston (which has multiple judges to which cases are randomly assigned), and smaller ones like Galveston (which has a single district court judge).
Under the new system, a case filed in Galveston seeking the type of sweeping relief described above would no longer automatically be heard by that one judge. Instead, it would be randomly assigned to one of the multiple judges in the entire Southern District.
It’s a bit “too little, too late” on the abortion drug case, but at least litigants can’t pick their own judge for these types of cases against the federal government going forward, which is a very good thing IMHO!
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