Judge's retirement adds to courthouse crunch

WASHINGTON -- The retirement of Fresno-based U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger will leave a gaping hole in one of the federal judiciary's busiest regions.

Wanger's last day was Friday. On Monday, Wanger, 70, enters private practice after two decades as a federal judge.

Because Wagner was on senior status, his position won't be filled. One result will be an even heavier workload for his former colleagues.

"The already-strained workload of our court has now become impossible in light of Judge Wanger's announcement to leave our bench," U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. O'Neill said in an e-mail.

The Eastern District stretches from the Oregon border to the Tehachapi Mountains south of Bakersfield. Its judges shoulder a commensurately large workload.

Last year, 5,681 civil cases and 941 criminal cases were filed in the district.

The workload for Eastern District trial judges is about three times greater than that of federal judges nationwide. A bill by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein would add six judges to the district, but the legislation has repeatedly fallen short.

Senate Republicans and Democrats have seemed reluctant to put aside their differences over judicial matters. Their track record is particularly bleak in filling vacancies.

"It seems like it's kind of slowed down," Kevin Johnson, dean of the University of California at Davis law school, said of the judicial confirmation process. "It just seems like there's not much activity going on."

Johnson is a member of an advisory committee that helps screen potential judicial nominees for Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Nationwide, 92 federal judicial seats remain unfilled. Seventy-three of these are district court positions such as the one Wanger held in the Eastern District of California. Five of the district court vacancies are in California.

These trial level judicial slots used to be filled relatively easily, in part because district court judges handle cases and do not set precedent or define the law for a region the way appellate judges do.

Wanger, for instance, was nominated on Jan. 8, 1991, by then-President George H.W. Bush. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved him on March 13 that year and the Senate confirmed him on March 25. The confirmation did not seem slowed even though Bush was a Republican and the Senate was controlled by Democrats.

By contrast, President Barack Obama on March 10, 2010, nominated Kimberly Jo Mueller to a Sacramento-based U.S. District Court seat. The judiciary panel approved her May 10. Mueller, characterized by Johnson as "relatively noncontroversial," had to wait seven months before the Senate confirmed her in mid-December.

"There is no reason and still no explanation for these delays," Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who leads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said after Mueller's confirmation.

This summer, when the Senate adjourned for recess Aug. 2, lawmakers left town without taking action on 20 judicial nominees who had been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Leahy attributed the unfilled vacancies to "Republican obstruction." Republicans and even some Democrats point a finger at Obama, who has sometimes lagged in selecting nominees.

Obama has nominated 54 people for the 92 open federal judge positions; 38 positions do not yet have a nominee.

"I am perplexed as to why the president would ignore these pending vacancies," Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said this year.

Fresno Bee staff writer John Ellis contributed to this report.