Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States courts and judges/Archive 2

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Auto-lists

User:Polbot/scrap currently contains the appointments of George H.W. Bush, auto-generated, fully sortable. Both appeals courts and district courts are mixed in together. Comments? Accolades? Suggested improvements? – Quadell ^(talk) 22:40, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Close to perfect. I have the lists separated, and I pipe to the just the number for courts of appeals (e.g. Third) and to the case citation format for district courts (e.g. C.D. Ill., E.D.N.Y., S.D. Iowa, E.D.N.Y., D. Utah, D.R.I.). If you can generate lists like that, I can plug them straight into the articles! bd2412 T 23:09, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Here is the complete list of modern court abbreviations - almost all redirect to the correct court (except a few that redirect to disambig pages):

(snipped)

Cheers! bd2412 T 23:24, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Oops - sorry, I did not realize this until I saw the table on the actual page, but the active/senior service details are somewhat reversed. A federal judge is in active service from the moment he receives his commission until he enters senior status (unless he dies or is impeached or resigns entirely before that). Therefore, taking senior status is the end of active service. bd2412 T 01:26, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

For future reference, outputs will be at Special:PrefixIndex/User:Polbot/scrap/. Looking at the "senior status" issue now. – Quadell ^(talk) 01:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Is there need for a senior column at all then? – Quadell ^(talk) 01:30, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I really apologize for not catching that before. The the three columns should note the beginning date of active service, the end date of active service, and the end date of senior status. A judge who has not taken senior status would have "Incumbent" in the column indicating the end of active service. A judge who has taken senior status and is still in that status should have "Incumbent" in the column for the end date of senior status, I suppose. Note also that senior status has only existed since about the 1920s, so it won't apply really to any judges appointed by presidents before maybe Woodrow Wilson. bd2412 T 01:43, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

See if this is right: User:Polbot/scrap/GHWB_D – Quadell ^(talk) 02:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, on User:Polbot/scrap/Clinton A, you can see that I put a "(recess)" next to those appointed as a recess appointment. Is this a good way to show this? – Quadell ^(talk) 01:31, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The fact of a judge being a recess appointment is a curiosity, but of little importance in the big scheme of things. Except for the extremely rare situation of recess appointments being rejected (which has happened precisely 22 times out of about 300 recess appointments made), it is simply a start date that happens to precede formal nomination and confirmation. I've been putting them down as footnotes, and I think this is the proper way to handle them. I do the same thing with judges who are reassigned. For example, when the Eleventh Circuit was formed by splitting the Fifth Circuit in two, about half the judges then serving on the Fifth Circuit were reassigned to the Eleventh by operation of law (with no action required by the President, other than the fact that he signed the bill which split the Circuit). bd2412 T 01:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

So for recess appointments, should I say "October 3, 1955 ^R" or "October 3, 1955 (R)" or what? Also, the auto-lists for presidents won't show reassignments, but the ones for an individual district can (with the president left blank), or it can leave these out. – Quadell ^(talk) 02:16, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'd really like it to say October 3, 1955<ref>[[Recess appointment]].</ref> I can fill in the details later. (Or, if you want to be really thorough, you can have it say, e.g. October 3, 1955<ref>[[Recess appointment]]; formally nominated on January 7, 1956; confirmed by the United States Senate, and received commission, on January 18, 1956.</ref>). Cheers! bd2412 T 02:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The trouble, I suppose, is that it will mix reference footnotes that may exist with a simple repeating note, which could change its number as previous cites get added. Should we use a separate refnote group (viz. WP:REFNOTE)? Or I could use {{Ref label}} and {{Note label}} to force it to use an asterisk or R or something.^* – Quadell ^(talk) 02:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

^* Like this.

With respect to the potential mixing of footnotes, there really are none (except for the Obama page, which contrariwise has no judges, but will only ever have a small number of footnotes). The changing number of the "repeating note" is not a concern - actually, those notes will not be identical, as each will indicate dates specific to the judges in question (see George Washington judicial appointments). bd2412 T 03:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, check out the ones I've done at Special:PrefixIndex/User:Polbot/scrap/. There are some problems in the Lincoln one. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:47, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I incorporated the Clinton appellate table right into the article. The one issue there is the odd circumstance of Roger Gregory, who was a recess appointment by Clinton, but was formally nominated by Bush. In general, I would prefer to list the formal nomination date, for two reasons. First, there are some rare instances where a recess appointment is never formally nominated (for example, the judge dies during the recess period, or decides they don't want the job, or it is clear that a formal nomination will fail anyway). Second, the length of time between the nomination and the confirmation can signal the degree to which Congress objected to the appointment. I have not been saying formally confirmed, because that seems redundant to saying formally nominated. I think I see the problems with Lincoln - that individuals were sometimes appointed to two or three Districts simultaneously, and that the old pre-subdivision districts have different abbreviations. The multiple appointments will probably have to be dealt with by hand, but they will be very quick to take care of. The abbreviations for the obsolete courts are straightforward - they are the same as whatever came after the subdivision, but without the prefatory "E.", "W.", "N.", "S.", "M.", or "C.", hence the District of Illinois was D. Ill., of Ohio was D. Ohio, and so forth. Most states were subdivided before Lincoln, the complete list can be figured from Subdivided United States district courts. There was a period during which there was an Eastern District of Illinois, which was, of course, E.D. Ill. bd2412 T 14:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

There are some problems with the District court lists - both Clinton and Reagan (that I've checked so far) were missing judges of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Reagan was missing Stanley S. Harris, Thomas Francis Hogan, Thomas Penfield Jackson, Royce C. Lamberth, George Hughes Revercomb, and Stanley Sporkin. Clinton was missing |Paul L. Friedman, Ellen Segal Huvelle, Henry Harold Kennedy, Jr., Gladys Kessler, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, Richard W. Roberts, James Robertson (judge), Emmet G. Sullivan, and Ricardo M. Urbina. bd2412 T 15:30, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is bad news indeed. First off, my list (that took tons of work to put together) doesn't include Supreme Court justices. I knew that, but I wish I'd included them. Then I find that my list omits nomination dates for recess-appointed judges. Then I found that judges of the Circuit Court for the D.C. circuit had their "court" listing left blank. Now I find that some (but not all) judges on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia are missing completely. (These judges weren't even imported as articles.) Sigh. I think I'm going to have to re-import the list, which will be a lot of duplicated work. – Quadell ^(talk) 19:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The District Court for the District of Columbia is an odd case, because for many years it was called the "Supreme Court of the District of Columbia." This has even confused the compilers of the FJC bios. For example, Richard Busteed's FJC bio says that he was nominated (unsuccessfully) for the Supreme Court in 1873; it took considerable digging to find the original source record that revealed the nomination actually was to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

So far as I know, Wikipedia is not missing articles on any D.D.C. judges - Polbot may not have imported them, but they are still here. There are no redlinks on any of my lists of appointees by President, and those were pulled straight from FJC. The D.C. Circuit is small potatoes. There were, I think, no more than nine judges who ever served on that court, and I made most of those entries myself from FJC data a while ago. The good news is that the appellate judge lists are flawless, and can be thrown up and plugged into the appointments-by-president lists right away. By the way, if I didn't mention this before, don't bother with senior status columns for any presidents before Theodore Roosevelt. He was the first president to have any significant number of appointees take senior status (with 10). bd2412 T 20:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I have assembled appellate judge lists for all presidents that appointed them. – Quadell ^(talk) 21:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I am recreating the list. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:56, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

What should I do about the scrap pages once the tables have been copied into the appointed-by articles? Delete them? Or leave them as they are? bd2412 T 21:34, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I deleted the old ones... and made new ones! Check out Special:PrefixIndex/User:Polbot/scrap/. All presidents, with Supreme Court, District, Circuit, and Appellate judges. The latest and greatest. And the experience of recreating the list has helped me to automate it, so that if I need to do it again (with updated info, say), it should only take a few hours. Hurrah! Now onto the district lists... – Quadell ^(talk) 21:50, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I am, in a word, amazed. So what should I do with these when the information is incorporated? bd2412 T 22:05, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad I can do some good! Go ahead and delete them when you're done with them. – Quadell ^(talk) 22:18, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Some issues

Some issues:

1. In the appointed-by list, for judges who are reassigned because their District (or Circuit) was subdivided or redrawn, the tables show the date of reassignment as the ending date. Examples would be Isaac H. Bronson and John Charles Watrous in User:Polbot/scrap/James K. Polk/District (both continued to serve in a portion of the original District after subdivision) and Charles Tait in User:Polbot/scrap/James Monroe/District (who continued serving as the sole Alabama federal judge after the state was divided into two districts).
   • Yeah, that's the way the FJC shows it. See Watrous, John Charles for example. I can see that it could be misleading, but, GIGO.
     • There must be some way to deal with it though - whenever a judge is terminated by reassignment, skip to the next bit of info. Unfortunately, this has happened quite a bit. There's a similar issue with judges who were reassigned from the old circuit courts to the new courts of appeals in 1891.
2. In the by-district list, such judges are shown as having no appointing President (e.g. Elmer Gordon West in User:Polbot/scrap/United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, and more than half the judges in User:Polbot/scrap/United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit).
   • Yeah, I saw that. I don't like the way that looks either, but again, GIGO.
     • Can the names of the appointing presidents be pulled in retroactively, once the judges are known?
3. Dismbiguating terms in parenthesis should really be piped (e.g. David Davis (Supreme Court justice) in User:Polbot/scrap/Abraham Lincoln/Supreme Court should really just show David Davis
   • I wasn't sure. If you think so, I can change that automatically.
     • Yes, please do - the whole purpose of the parens is to disambiguate from others with the same name, not a concern for our articles.
4. Okay, this is really nitpicky, but the formal nomination date is still not in the footnote for rejected recess appointments. This may not be worth any stress, though, as there were only 22 such judges, and these can be done by hand.
   • I know, ~groan~. I never pulled that info in. I left those as (date). At this point, I'd rather do them by hand than run the master list again.
     • Not a problem at all - after all, the number is tiny and the judges are clearly identified.
5. Also, for judges who are appointed to multiple district courts at the same time, can we not just have a single line with breaks between the court names?
   • Hm, maybe. I'll have to look at it and think about it.

Sorry for all the complaining. The problems are minor, and the work, as a whole, is phenomenal. bd2412 T 23:02, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It's all good. Thanks for the feedback. – Quadell ^(talk) 04:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay then, one more thing - I had ultimately planned to include the seat for each Supreme Court Justice (and in the interim had put a column saying just "Chief Justice" or "Associate Justice"). I'd like that column to be left in, even if the content is blank. Also - and this is super nitpicky, the columns for the appellate judges should be topped with "Circuit" rather than "Court". bd2412 T 04:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'll code in the changes and re-run that part of the code. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:17, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I've made the requested changes, and I'm re-running the bot. Judge articles are piped to just show the names. It says circuit instead of court for circuit courts. When a judge serves two districts for identical terms, they are listed in one row. Etc. And when a judge changed courts due to process of law, there are 2 listings: both show the same start dates and appointing president, but they have different end dates and court names. (See, for instance, LeBaron B. Colt's entries at User:Polbot/scrap/Chester A. Arthur/circuit court and then User:Polbot/scrap/Chester A. Arthur/Appeals. Or see Ross Wilkins' two entries at User:Polbot/scrap/Andrew Jackson/District.) It isn't perfect, but it's the best I could whip up, and it should make manual corrections easier. – Quadell ^(talk) 23:28, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Excellent - thanks. I'll have a look after dinner. bd2412 T 23:59, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Yep, this'll work. CHeers! bd2412 T 02:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Working out great so far - I'm about a quarter of the way through, I think. bd2412 T 03:53, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

New template

Previously I hadn't thought about a way for non-administrators to indicate that a bot-created FJC subpage could be deleted after merging. User:Wikijsmak brought this up on my talkpage, and got me thinking. So I created the {{Delete FJC}} template, and changed the {{Merge FJC}} template to explain it. Basically, you simply replace the {{Merge FJC|Judge name}} tag with a {{Delete FJC|Judge name}} tag, and that puts the page into Category:Bot-created FJC subpages needing delete action for administrators to see it and delete it. I'm just letting you all know. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:56, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

User:BD2412/Barrett v. United States

The case that found that South Carolina had not been subdivided was Barrett v. United States (not Bartlett v. United States) - FJC has it wrong. I've started a stub in my user space, at User:BD2412/Barrett v. United States. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Finished and moved to mainspace - let me know what you think. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks great! But there may be an important omission, which I discuss on the talk page. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:31, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Good article nomination

George Bethune Adams is up for Good Article consideration. See Talk:George_Bethune_Adams/GA1. I got called to testify before a Senate committee on short notice, so haven't had time to address these; collaborative help to improve the article to get it over the hump is appreciated. THF (talk) 14:17, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I have attempted to address the concerns raised there. Thanks for bringing it up here. I've never had the opportunity to say this to anyone before, but... good luck on your Senate testimony! – Quadell ^(talk) 15:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

And it passed! I think that's the first GA-promotion since this project was formed. Excellent! – Quadell ^(talk) 17:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I have to say, we've done more and in a shorter time than any new WikiProject I've ever seen! bd2412 T 23:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article alerts

Do we want to put Wikipedia:Article alerts on our project's page? I don't have a lot of familiarity with it, but it looks useful. – Quadell ^(talk) 03:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Should we use {{Tasks}}

Some projects use the {{Tasks}} template. If we were to replace the current "tasks", "projects", and "article information" with this template, it would look like this:

Omitted. It's in the history if you're really interested.

Is this an improvement? – Quadell ^(talk) 14:44, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Something is messed up. When I click on "Courthouses" in the Table of contents of this page, I get brought to this discussion item about formatting something, not about courthouses. So i think the formatting is failing. Perhaps it is a test that should be on a formatting test page, or somewhere else. Can whatever it is be removed from this Talk page so that the TOC works properly, please? doncram (talk) 23:09, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure. There wasn't much enthusiasm for using the format anyway. – Quadell ^(talk) 01:36, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri

I'd like to propose that we get United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri up to good article status - maybe even featured article status. Why the E.D. Mo., you may ask - what is so special about it. The answer is NOTHING. This is your typical run-of-the-mill judicial district, and I might add an article that is in really horrible shape (notwithstanding my recent addition of Quadell's excellent table of judges). But every judicial district has a story to be told, potential images to be included, and basic jurisdictional information to be presented in a common format. If we can get the E.D. Mo. to FA status, the S.D.N.Y. or N.D.Ill. should be a piece of cake. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

If this turns out well, we might (retroactively) make it a "Collaboration of the week/month/fortnight" or whatever. I've notified related projects (e.g. St. Louis) to see if any of them want to help. – Quadell ^(talk) 03:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I've copied and pasted the seal from their website. Not sure how best to arrange the images, but I think there ought to be a standard infobox for district courts including the seal, jurisdiction map, Circuit, foundation date, number of judges, etc. Maybe the current chief judge? Too much in the infobox either yanks it out of the article or makes it repetitive (which is okay to a degree). bd2412 T 04:03, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I suppose {{Infobox U.S. state}}, {{Infobox U.S. County}}, and especially {{Infobox U.S. congressional district}} may be instructive. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:12, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Should it be called {{Infobox U.S. judicial district}} or {{Infobox U.S. district court}} or {{Infobox U.S. court district}} or what? – Quadell ^(talk) 12:18, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

First draft of documentation: Template:Infobox U.S. district court/doc – Quadell ^(talk) 12:30, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Creation date should be included irrespective of whether the court is obsolete (I don't know why congressional districts don't include that). No need, I think, for a map of the state's location in the U.S. Someone looking for the E.D. Mo. is likely to know where Missouri is (but not so likely to know where the district boundaries lie). bd2412 T 14:07, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Would a map of the district's location within the circuit be useful? (Also, did I pick the best name for the template?) – Quadell ^(talk) 14:16, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

In the article, sure, but I wouldn't put it in the infobox. Too busy, and I'm worried about pushing the text down too far. That said, I think every article on a district court should have at least two or three images in addition to the seal and district map - pictures of the courthouse (as we have here), the chief judge or the most notable past judge if we have them, maybe a picture from or about a notable trial held there. But we don't want the article to end up looking like a gallery either - we need text to fill it up, and I think we're near the limit of what we'll get from the FJC and court websites. For this to reach GA status (and especially FA) we'll need some book-based history citing that goes beyond the government sources. Oh, and yes, template name is exactly right. bd2412 T 17:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I did a little snooping on Google Books and found a twelve-page excerpt from the "Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri" on the courts of that state, which goes into extensive detail about the various machinations of the Eastern District - far more, perhaps, than would be appropriate for our article, but there is probably material there that we can incorporate. It's in the public domain, so I have parked the whole chapter at s:Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri/United States Courts. bd2412 T 04:31, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

A few questions about what might be included. Is Beussink v. Woodland R-IV School District notable enough to be mentioned? Are there other notable cases? Any that were appealed to the Eighth Circuit and then to the Supreme Court? Is this bus pact (voluntary busing arrangement) worthy of mention? How about the William N. Grover, the US Attorney for E.D. Mo who was nearly convicted of murder? – Quadell ^(talk) 19:00, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I looked up Beussink, and it is indeed a neat little case. It has been cited by a number of circuit courts and by about 50 law review articles, so it is definitely notable enough to merit a mention. bd2412 T 19:41, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Did a quick LEXIS search and found that Sell v. United States, Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC and Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier originated in the E.D. Mo. Also, Brown Shoe Co. v. United States (which we have no article for, but was a major antitrust decision), and Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co. (a noted trade secret case), for which no 'pedia entries exist. bd2412 T 20:13, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth. bd2412 T 20:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, United Shoe Machinery Corp. v. United States (another big antitrust case, this one prohibiting certain kinds of machinery leases), went to the Supreme Court. bd2412 T 20:34, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I put this information in. Do you think it's ready for a peer review? – Quadell ^(talk) 22:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's give it a shot! bd2412 T 04:06, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I nominated it here. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:54, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The article still needs quite a bit of tightening. THF (talk) 14:24, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Table of judges

It seems to make much more sense to have a table of judges be in chron (or reverse-chron) order than alphabetical. The alphabetical list can be determined from the Category, while the reverse-chron will tell one at a glance who is currently on the bench. THF (talk) 14:24, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a sortable table. Click the button atop the "ended active service" column, and viola! Chronological (or reverse chron). bd2412 T 15:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of E.D. Mo. judges, as long as we're on this article we should try to at least minimally clean up all of Polbot's auto-imported judges for the District. I'll tackle a few tomorrow. Cheers! bd2412 T 05:00, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Could Polbot generate a sort of master list of the first female, black, and Hispanic judge for each court? I'd kind of like to include that information in the court articles. bd2412 T 02:17, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I'll set that up when I get a chance. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:08, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, see User:Polbot/scrap for that info. – Quadell ^(talk) 02:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Awesome - I'm actually stunned at the number of courts that have never yet had a woman or minority judge! bd2412 T 04:30, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Peer review status

User:Brianboulton, an experienced Wikipedian with tons of Featured and Good articles under his belt, has offered to review United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. We should have some good suggestions up shortly. (He also reviewed George Washington judicial appointments, and as soon as that list's Peer Review expires I intent to nominate it as a featured list.) – Quadell ^(talk) 13:08, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I commented on the article talk page, and want to do so here as well, at how impressed I am with the overhaul of this article that we have done in just the past few weeks! bd2412 T 16:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Subdivided United States district courts

Should Subdivided United States district courts be renamed Obsolete United States district courts (cf. List of obsolete United States congressional districts)? And should each one have an article? Currently only a few do. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:33, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, some of them had "articles", but they were all very short (at most a paragraph, but generally just a line or two), so I merged them all into one list. Made sense to me, as the undivided versions tended to be short-lived and had few judges (or, in some cases, only one judge), and not much history to write of. bd2412 T 14:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, "obsolete" is not quite right - the congressional districts listed as obsolete are those that were created, but then eliminated when their state population declined, and the state had less representation. In cases where a state used to have a single Congressional district, and this was later split in two (or more) the original district is not listed as obsolete. bd2412 T 14:10, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Defunct? (That's the category name.) – Quadell ^(talk) 14:44, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe - actually "subdivided" is clearly not the best title, as the article addresses courts that became extinct when they were re-merged after a period of division (South Carolina and New Jersey), while the Potomac and Norfolk courts don't fit into either model (and neither does the Eastern District of Illinois, really). I'm going to need to make more maps! bd2412 T 03:56, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, "subdivided", "former", "obsolete", or "defunct"? I propose "former". Any objections? – Quadell ^(talk) 20:32, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

How about we abandon the adjective and use a noun instead: "Subdivision of United States district courts". The problem with the other titles, as I think about it, is that some of these courts were subdivided and then recombined, so the subdivisions are obsolete but not the courts themselves. bd2412 T 15:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know. "Subdivision of United States district courts" would probably be about how courts are subdivided. The article as it currently stands is more of a list of courts that are no longer active (though "active" probably isn't the right word). – Quadell ^(talk) 17:59, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

This reminds me of the Dorothy Parker poem where she runs down the list of suicide methods and their drawbacks (nooses break, guns are messy, poisons stink, etc.) and concludes, "might as well live". bd2412 T 18:14, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Thought it over. I think "former" is fine. It applies to almost all of the cases, and for the ones that were re-merged, the subdivisions are former districts. bd2412 T 01:19, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, note that {{USDistCourts}} uses "extinct". But that sounds a tad dramatic to my (non-specialist) ears. – Quadell ^(talk) 01:35, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

A bit late, but I've moved it to Former United States district courts. bd2412 T 20:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

David Hamilton (judge) (and more to come)

Obama has nominated David Hamilton (judge) for the Seventh Circuit - we will probably need to keep an eye on high-profile Obama nominations, as once they are run in the news they will be targets for vandalism (or for people with political biases one way or the other to add POV). bd2412 T 03:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, if this WaPo article is any indication, there will be fights ahead. On the plus side, we're getting lots more information about Hamilton. – Quadell ^(talk) 03:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Kindly forgive my ignorance, but is this Obama's first judicial nomination? (Hell, the guy hasn't even been able to complete his Cabinet...and I voted for the dude...what gives?) --Eastlaw ^talk ⁄ _contribs 06:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's his first nomination. More should follow soon -- there are many vacancies. <editorialcomment>But some politicians seem to habitually hold up highly-qualified nominees for gamey political reasons, so Obama's being extremely choosy about who he nominates and when, trying to maximize success while minimizing political capital expended.</editorialcomment> – Quadell ^(talk) 13:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

To be fair, George W. Bush didn't nominate his first judicial appointment until May 17, 2001, and Bill Clinton's first was on July 1, 1993 (which, by the way, was the nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court - Clinton's first nominations to the lower courts were made on August 6, 1993). Bush Sr. made his first four appointments on February 28, 1989, but I believe several of those were carryovers from the Reagan Administration (i.e. had already been vetted), while Reagan's first nomination was made on July 1, 1981. All data courtesy of the FJC. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:34, 31 March 2009 (UTC)