Talk:United States federal judge

"For life"

The assertion that federal judges are appointed "for life" is one of the most oft-repeated misconceptions about the constitution (rivaled only by the percentage of Americans who believe that "separation of church and state" is in the document). Actually, Article III, Section 1 of the constitution states that "judges, both of the supreme and inferior [federal] Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior...." Indeed, judges have been impeached and removed from office for using foul language, public drunkenness, and other inappropriate conduct that modern popular culture does not recognize as one of the "high crimes and misdemeanors" in Article I. The framers of the constitution and their progeny apparently did not hold so high a threshold for keeping judges accountable and impeaching them for misconduct. Rob Gurry, Esq. — Preceding unsigned comment moved from article by Michael Hardy (talk • contribs) 21:52, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Notwithstanding the above, only 13 federal judges have been successfully removed. See (http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/topics_ji_bdy!OpenDocument&Click=). Also, the above is incorrect; the impeachment criteria is in Article II, and only explicitly applies to executive officers. Whether those criteria extends to judges I don't know. However, it's pretty clear that impeachment, particularly of judges, is not subject to judicial review (U.S. v. Nixon). LH 01:30, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Clean up

This page ought to be cleaned up. There are Article 3 judges (what most people think of) and Article 1 judges (administrative, etc). This article also has a pretty subjective tone to it that ought to be neutralized. LH 01:30, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I put some of this material here, but I am not a lawyer and know little about "Article 1 judges", so I can't help. Perhaps what you consider the "subjective tone" was something I wrote, but since I don't understand what you're referring to, I can't help there either. Maybe you could add something on Article 1 judges and neutralize the tone. Michael Hardy 20:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

judicial pay

in case someone can get to it before I have the time to rewrite the section, there are some updates to the pay situation due to the omnibus appropriations act of 2009:

http://www.abanet.org/poladv/priorities/judicial_pay/

Cquan ^{(after the beep...)} 11:36, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Please change the title

The correct job title, and the correct title for this article, should read, "United States District Judge." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbstone (talk • contribs) 14 March 2013

Sorry, this article covers all federal judges---appeals and district. --Coolcaesar (talk) 15:06, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Powers

The article doesn't explain the powers of a federal judge. Surely that is the most important point? --Clivemacd (talk) 22:09, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Where is the URL for US Federal Judges?

Where is the URL for U.S. federal judges? There is a government-maintained website that has the data or brief profile of all U.S. judges. Where is it? Stevenmitchell (talk) 10:44, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello. Do you mean the website United States Courts? It is the only government-maintained website concerning the federal judiciary that I found.

Link to United States Courts: https://www.uscourts.gov

The website Ballotpedia has information on all United States federal judges, but it is not maintained by the United States government.

Link to Ballotpedia: https://ballotpedia.org

Let me know if you have another website in mind. Many thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CoolCactusCat (talk • contribs) 12:37, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Unsourced Material: "[All federal judges] were permitted to earn a maximum of an additional $21,000 a year for teaching."

Good day to all.

The statement that all federal judges are permitted to earn a maximum of an additional $21,000 a year for teaching is unsourced.

Now, I've spent just about the entire past hour researching this, and I've found only one source that supports the aforementioned statement. It comes from Justice Stephen Breyer's dissent in the denial of certiorari in the 2002 Supreme Court case of, in full, SPENCER WILLIAMS, JUDGE, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA, et al. v. UNITED STATES.

The Honorable Stephen Breyer wrote: "On January 1, 1990, the Ethics Reform Act (Ethics Act or Act) took effect as law... Insofar as that statute applied to federal judges it accomplished two important objectives. First, it strictly limited the amount of outside income that any judge could earn... And it imposed a dollar limit (now just over $21,000) on the income a judge could earn through classroom teaching."

Link to the website that houses the dissent: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/01-175.ZD.html

Link to the PDF file of the dissent: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/01-175P.ZD

We now move to the Act itself. Nowhere in the Ethics Reform Act does it give the figure of $21,000 or "just over." While it details other monetary restrictions for federal judges, it does not specifically state that federal judges may not make over $21,000 a year through classroom teaching.

Link to the official Congressional government website that houses the Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st-congress/house-bill/3660/text

Link to the PDF file of the Act: https://www.congress.gov/101/statute/STATUTE-103/STATUTE-103-Pg1716.pdf

Thus, the only source we have for this claim is one reference that Justice Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court made in his dissent in 2002.

I'm no masterful Wikipedia editor, just a 14-year-old European with a dream to serve on the U.S. federal judiciary; but this doesn't seem like a good enough source to me. I'll check back in a few days to see if anything's different, and if nothing is, I'll remove the claim that all federal judges are permitted to earn $21,000 or just over that through classroom teaching.

Thank you for your time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CoolCactusCat (talk • contribs) 19:20, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Edit: As of the 23rd of February, 2022, I have removed the unsourced claim. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.25.87.119 (talk) 12:09, 23 February 2022 (UTC)