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Judiciary

7th Circuit nominee faces questions about motions backlog

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 25, 2024, 3:33 pm CDT

A nominee to a federal appeals court based in Chicago defended her record as a district judge when Republican senators criticized her case backlogs during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Maldonado of the Northern District of Illinois has the seventh-highest backlog of motions pending for at least six months among all federal judges at the trial level, Republicans said during the hearing. She currently has 125 pending motions.

Law360, Courthouse News Service and Reuters have coverage.

Maldonado has been nominated to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Chicago. If confirmed, she would be the first Hispanic judge on the 7th Circuit.

Maldonado’s motions backlog is worse than any other district judge in the 7th Circuit, Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said during the hearing. According to Reuters, Kennedy asked: “You really think of all the other district judges in the 7th Circuit, you’re the one that ought to be promoted based on this record?”

Maldonado said she was assigned about 300 cases with pending motions when she became a federal judge in August 2022, and her caseload increased to 360 after the retirement of three judges.

Maldonado said she is “a very involved judge,” according to coverage by Law360. “I go back and forth with my law clerks on drafts. It’s not sometimes the most rapid process,” she said.

Maldonado has been rated well qualified by the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary.

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3. 3rd Circuit judicial nominee opposed for…

Judiciary

3rd Circuit judicial nominee opposed for ties to a group critics say amplifies ‘antisemitic speech’ and ‘terrorist propaganda’

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 31, 2024, 9:14 am CST

The nomination of a BigLaw partner to serve on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Philadelphia should be withdrawn because of his service as a board member for a group with “a deep history of amplifying antisemitic speech, terrorist propaganda and anti-American rhetoric,” according to a letter to President Joe Biden by a group of Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The letter seeks the withdrawal of the nomination of Adeel Abdullah Mangi, who would become the first Muslim American federal appeals judge if he is confirmed to the 3rd Circuit.

Courthouse News Service covered the Jan. 25 letter, while NBC News and Reuters covered the Senate Judiciary Committee’s 11-10 vote Jan. 18 to advance Mangi’s nomination.

Mangi is a partner with Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler. He is being criticized for his former service as a member of the board of advisers for the Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers Law School.

The center says it addresses “the underlying structural and systemic causes of Islamophobia and xenophobia against people of Arab, African and South Asian descent,” according to Courthouse News Service.

The Republican lawmakers said in their letter the center hosted an event on the 20-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that featured a speaker who blamed the attack on the United States and its support for Israel. That speaker supported a terrorist organization that was involved in the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the letter said.

The letter also said while Mangi was a board member, the center “supported efforts to delegitimize the state of Israel by pushing for the boycott, divestment and sanction movement and calling for resistance in
Palestine.”

Mangi said at his confirmation hearing he met with other advisory board members just once per year, and he “unequivocally would condemn terrorism or people associated with it.”

Courthouse News Service published a statement by a White House spokesperson who said the attacks on Mangi are “vile, unconscionable smears” that have been discredited by groups that include the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee.