Magistrate Judges: Serving the Judiciary and the Public

[Music] all rise please a magistrate judge is a judicial officer in the federal system and our job is to assist the district court judges and handling the caseload we are what we call the Gateway to the federal courts we're the first judges that litigants see both in the civil and criminal arena we are supposed to sit high and high chair but we're supposed to serve low with people who are coming to court for help in response to increasing demands on the judiciary Congress passed the Federal Magistrates Act of 1968 magistrate judges replaced u.s. commissioners who worked part time and had limited jurisdiction when you have an increased workload and you have a fixed number of article 3 judges and you don't want the public to suffer delays you have to have some other source of resources to be able to deal with what judges do and that's where the management judges have stepped in they had been invaluable it really helps the process a lot we could not do what we do about them magistrate judges can preside over any matter except felony trials or felony sentencing magistrate judges serve eight year terms applicants are vetted by a merit selection panel and chosen by a majority vote of the article three judges in a district the merit selection committee consists of lawyers but also members of the community who are not lawyers is that they can review candidates and return me recommendations to the court I really like that she was born and raised in this district our communities are diverse with people from different backgrounds when the court reflects that the community has confidence that the court is sound court that reflects who we are as a people intelligence hard work honesty those are probably the biggest qualities that I would look for in a magistrate judge you need to be patient with the lawyers and the litigants that appear before you a judge should be humble the duties of magistrate judges vary district to district that flexibility was built right into the statute they step in where there needed most in southwest border states for instance magistrate judges handle matters in a large number of immigration cases if a district includes public land magistrate judges may handle a variety of petty criminal offenses people who ride snowmobiles off-road or damaged public land or other offenses of that nature that if you're sitting as a magistrate judge in Brooklyn you're just not going to get there's a district court right in Yosemite National Park in California first us commissioners and now magistrate judges have been in the park since 1920 in many districts around the country magistrate judges are helping more and more with civil litigation with the consent of all parties magistrate judges can handle any civil matter from start to finish fewer than 2% of all civil cases proceed to trial a lot of cases are gonna get resolved not by trial and not on summary judgment and that's where the settlement process occurs if a magistrate judge can assist in helping the parties resolve their disputes in a way that they find acceptable you have more pleased parties leaving the building this is a service industry we're here to help people magistrate judges play different roles in different districts in serving the judiciary they're serving the public every day I came off the bench as I always do to shake everyone's hand and congratulate them on her job well done and she sort of brushed my hand aside and wrapped me in this big old hug just because with tears in her eyes and it really struck me about how that showed how much of an impact judges can have on people's lives [Music] you

Channel: United States Courts

Views: 9,977

Rating: 4.5416665 out of 5

Keywords: Magistrate Judges, Federal Magistrates Act of 1968, Sonia Sotomayor, federal court, federal judiciary, U.S. Courts, Judiciary

Id: v81yi5GbECc

Length: 4min 12sec (252 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 29 2018