Opinion ID: 29331
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: order of referral

Text: 5 The district judge assigned these causes to the respective magistrate judges pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(3), which provides that [a] magistrate may be assigned such additional duties as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States. We begin the analysis by recognizing that a magistrate judge has the statutory authority or jurisdiction to conduct a felony guilty plea proceeding as an additional duty pursuant to § 636(b)(3). United States v. Dees, 125 F.3d 261, 266 (5th Cir.1997). We must now determine whether the district judge in the instant cases properly delegated the authority to the magistrate judges. 6 The government argues that a memorandum issued by Judge Hilda Tagle to Magistrate Judge Black served as a general and prospective referral order to all magistrate judges in civil cases and felony guilty pleas. The October 1998 Memo instructs Magistrate Judge Black with respect to procedures for civil cases and felony guilty pleas. According to the government, the October 1998 Memo is located in the administrative records of the two magistrate judges in the Brownsville Division of the Southern District of Texas. 7 The October 1998 Memo does not serve as a proper referral order for the Defendants' cases. Indeed, the language of the October 1998 Memo belies its alleged status as a general and prospective referral order. The October 1998 Memo is labeled a Memorandum, not an Order of Referral. The October 1998 Memo also instructs the magistrate judge on five steps that we must take for the magistrate judge to preside over plea allocutions. The second step states that [a]n order of referral to the magistrate will be entered after the consent form is signed. Only then, in the third step, should the magistrate judge take the guilty plea and file an R[eport] & R[ecommendation] about acceptance of the plea. Judge Tagle's memorandum indicates that she intended to continue entering specific referral orders and apparently intended the October 1998 Memo as nothing more than procedural instructions for the magistrate judge. Tellingly, according to the appellants, Judge Tagle recently re-took several guilty pleas in cases in which the referral order was entered subsequent to a magistrate judge's accepting a guilty plea. 1 8 Accordingly, we are constrained to find that the October 1998 Memo was not a proper referral order, and it is undisputed that the district judge entered the referral orders in these cases after the respective plea allocutions. Thus, the district judge had not entered a proper referral order at the time the magistrate judges presided over the appellants' guilty plea hearings. 2