A United States Magistrate Judge is a federal trial judge appointed to serve in a United States district court for a term of eight years. He or she is appointed by the life-tenured federal judges of a district court, District Judges, who supervise the activities of the Magistrate Judges by assigning civil cases for jury or non-jury trial upon consent of the parties and for pre-trial matters. Similarly criminal cases are assigned to Magistrate Judges on the consent of the parties, except for the trial of felony cases.
The current Magistrate Judge system was begun by Congress in 1968 expanding on the 175 year old United States commissioner system. The Magistrate Judges are appointed based upon the recommendations of a citizen's merit screening committee. In 2009, in addition to the 521 full-time Magistrate Judge positions authorized there were 48 part-time judges and 3 combination Clerk of Court/Magistrate Judges who serve four year terms.
It is the policy of the Judicial Conference of the United States to oppose restrictions on the utilization of Magistrate Judges by the district courts, Long Range Plan for the Federal Courts. This flexibility enables the courts to manage increasing caseloads with limited resources.
For the 12 month period ending September 30, 2008, magistrate judges performed 968,921 judicial duties, a 2.2 percent increase over the previous 12 month period. Among these were 269.071 civil pretrial duties, including 175,241 motions, 21,602 settlement conferences, and 49,915 other pretrial conferences.
They also performed 164,937 felony pretrial duties, including 94,317 motions, 23,542 pretrial conferences, and 1,899 evidentiary hearings.
Magistrate judges terminated 10,814 civil cases with litigants' consent in the 12 month period ending September 30, 2008, an increase of 2.3 percent over the previous 12 months. During the same 12 month period magistrate judges conducted 313 civil jury trials and 212 civil trials without jury. This use of magistrate judges to resolve civil cases, facilitated by means such as including them in a court's civil case assignment system, has been a key component of many courts' efforts to make the best use of judicial resources.
Magistrate judges performed 2.2 per-cent more judicial duties in the 12 month period ending September 30, 2008. Magistrate judges submitted 22,745 recommended dispositions in prisoner cases (habeas corpus and civil rights). They completed 4,779 reports and recommendations in social security appeals. They disposed of 112,653 misdemeanor and petty offense cases. Magistrate judges conducted 338,113 felony preliminary proceedings, 4.7 percent more than the previous 12 months. Magistrate judges' volume of detention hearings (among the lengthiest of felony preliminary proceedings) reached 46,471 in the 12 month period ending September 30, 2008.
William J. Nealon United States Courthouse in Scranton, PA
Thurgood Marshall Administrative Office of United States Courts