Opinion ID: 159242
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Review of the case assignment system pursuant to the court's supervisory powers

Text: 107 The allegations that Mr. Pearson directs at the government raise concerns beyond the requirements of the Due Process Clause. In addition to the due process problems we have discussed, our review of prior decisions and scholarly commentary reveals four related problems with the practice of allowing prosecutors to steer cases to particular judges. 108 First, the practice arguably affords the government an unfair advantage in litigating the case. [I]f a litigant can choose which of [a group of] judges shall preside at the trial, that party may be able to obtain a subtle advantage over the other by selecting a judge more likely to resolve close questions in that party's favor, even if the trial is to be a jury trial so that the judge will not make the ultimate decision. Tyson II, 50 F.3d at 439. 109 Second, prosecutorial maneuvering in an attempt to steer a case to a particular judge may involve an abuse of the judicial system. Thus, prosecutors may file successive cases in multiple districts in search of a judge whom they think will treat their arguments more favorably. See Erwin, 155 F.3d at 825 (finding the filing of successive cases strongly suggestive of judge shopping). In such an instance, when the choice of forum is made not for its connection with the dispute or for convenience to the parties and witnesses but rather as a means of obtaining a particular judge, a prosecutor's conduct may violate ethical rules prohibiting the filing of actions that 'delay[,] . . . harass or maliciously injure another.' Note, Forum Shopping Reconsidered, 103 Harvard L. Rev. 1677, 1690 (1990) (quoting Model Code of Professional Responsibility, DR 7-102(A)(1) (1981)) (alteration in original); see generally id. 110 Third, a system that allows prosecutorial judge-shopping arguably lacks the appearance of impartiality that is required to obtain the confidence of the public and the accused in the system. See Tyson v. State, 619 N.E.2d 276, 300 (Ind. App. 1993) (Tyson I); see also Tyson II, 50 F.3d at 441 (concluding that [t]he practice [in the Indiana state courts] of allowing the prosecutor to choose the grand jury and hence the trial judge is certainly unsightly . . . ; it does lack the appearance of impartiality). If a judge is selected by a prosecutor rather than by a neutral procedure, then one might reasonably question the decisions made by the selected judge. Although the judge's decisions might well be justified by the facts and the applicable law, the suspicion arises that the real reasons for the decisions may lie in some unspoken understanding or shared values that led the prosecutor to select the particular judge to handle the case. Prosecutorial steering thus exposes the tension between the ideal of the rule of law and the reality of a system created and administered by human beings. Forum Shopping Reconsidered, supra, at 1686. 111 Fourth, the practice, if undertaken on a broad scale, arguably threatens the independence of the judiciary. If a judge receives case assignments not through some neutral system, but rather because of prosecutors' opinion that he or she is more favorably disposed to the government's arguments than another judge in the same district, then a judge's caseload might be based in part on prosecutors' evaluations of judicial performance. Under that scenario, judges meeting with the prosecutors' approval might have future cases assigned to them whereas judges whom prosecutors dislike might not receive future assignments. In rendering judges' workloads dependent on advocates' assessment of their decisions, a widespread tolerance of prosecutorial steering might tempt judges to base their decisions in a given case on the effect of those decisions on their future assignments. See McDonald, 83 N.Y.S.2d at 626 (criticizing a county system allowing the district attorney's office to select judges for particular cases and concluding [t]hat a judge should ever be burdened with the thought that his assignments depended on the district attorney's appraisal of his court work is unthinkable in American jurisprudence). 112 In light of these serious concerns about the practice of prosecutorial steering, we believe that Mr. Pearson's allegations warrant the exercise of our supervisory power over the district court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2106 (providing that the court may order such relief as may be just under the circumstances). We therefore consider whether, aside from the due process claim raised by Mr. Pearson, his allegations of an improper manipulation of the case assignment process warrant reversal of his conviction. 113 In conducting this analysis, we will apply the standard that we have adopted for reviewing certain violations of the recusal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 455, when there is no indication that the tribunal is actually biased. As in this case, these recusal cases view the promotion of public confidence in the integrity of the judicial process as an important policy. Liljeberg v. Health Servs. Acquisition Corp., 486 U.S. 847, 858 n.7 (1988). As with prosecutorial steering, the elimination, if possible, of even the appearance of impropriety is desirable. See id. at 860. 114 In Harris v. Champion, 15 F.3d 1538 (10th Cir. 1994), we concluded that a judge should have recused himself from a case pursuant to 455 because his participation in the case created an appearance of impropriety and because he was related to a party. We then considered the following factors in determining whether the error was harmless: (1) the risk of injustice to the parties in the particular case; (2) the risk that the denial of relief will produce injustice in other cases; and (3) the risk of undermining the public's confidence in the judicial process. Harris, 15 F.3d at 1571-72 (quoting Liljeberg, 486 U.S. at 864). Because that approach addresses both the individual and systemic interests at issue in this instance of alleged prosecutorial steering, we apply it to Mr. Pearson's claim. 115 Having already concluded that the alleged selection of Judge Belot did not affect this result in this case, we proceed to the second factor--the risk of injustice in other cases. Here, it is significant that the District of Kansas's practice operates to allow prosecutors to select judges in only a narrow set of circumstances: when a superseding indictment is filed after a series of related cases have been assigned to different judges. There is no indication that the alleged manipulation of the case assignment system will recur in a large number of cases. Cf. Tyson II, 50 F.3d at 438 (observing that a law of general application that provided that the U.S. Attorney in each district shall designate the federal judge to preside in criminal cases . . . would raise profound issues under the due process clause). 116 Here, Ms. Stinson (an employee of the clerk's office in the District of Kansas) testified that, in most instances, the district follows a random assignment system. In our view, such an assignment system will usually protect against the most egregious forms of prosecutorial steering. Moreover, the specific practice at issue here appears to be remediable in other cases. In particular, the record suggests no reason why the District of Kansas could not employ a case assignment system that does not allow the prosecutor to select the judge in instances in which the government files several separate but related cases and then obtains a consolidated superseding indictment. We strongly urge the District of Kansas to adopt such a system, and we note that, even under the current system, defendants in other cases may still seek reassignment or recusal if the facts warrant such relief. Thus, this factor too, suggests that the error in the assignment of the case was harmless. 117 The third factor--the risk of undermining the public's confidence in the judicial process--presents a closer question. Unfortunately, the cases applying this harmless error test do not set forth a clear standard for determining when a particular violation undermines the public's confidence in the judicial process. Liljeberg, the Supreme Court decision from which this standard is derived, indicates that the determination must be made on a case-by-case basis. See 486 U.S. at 862-87. In our view, several considerations support a finding of harmlessness here. 5 118 First, in contrast to other instances of prosecutorial steering, Mr. Pearson has not alleged that the government has violated particular ethical rules or criminal laws. See United States v. August, 745 F.2d 400, 401-04 (6th Cir. 1984) (affirming conviction for interfering with the due administration of justice in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 1503 by circumventing the case assignment system in a bankruptcy court); State v. Jurek, 556 N.E.2d 1191, 1198 (Ohio Ct. App. 1989) (affirming conviction for bribing bond commissioners in order to steer criminal cases to particular judges). Even if we assume that the prosecution manipulated the judicial assignment system by reordering the defendants' names on the style of the indictment, as Mr. Person suggests, we are not presented with such egregious prosecutorial conduct that reversal of his conviction is necessary in order to protect the public's confidence in the judicial system. 119 Second, we must acknowledge that a certain type of judge-shopping inheres in our federalist system. See McCuin v. Texas Power & Light Co., 714 F.2d 1255, 1261 (5th Cir. 1983). In the case before us, for example, we note that although robbery and murder charges outside federal or Indian land are typically filed in state courts, the provisions of the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, authorized the United States Attorney's office to bring charges against Mr. Pearson in federal court. The decision to proceed in federal court (rather than to allow the state prosecutors to try the case in state court) could have been made for a variety of reasons. See McCuin, 714 F.2d at 1261. However, if the prosecution here admitted that it chose the federal forum because it thought that the federal judges in Kansas were more favorable to the government than the state judges, we do not believe that such a form of judge-shopping would undermine the public's confidence in the integrity of the proceedings to the extent that reversal of the conviction would be warranted. Cf. United States v. Andersen, 940 F.2d 593, 596 (10th Cir. 1991) (holding that a defendant's due process rights are not violated by the federal government's decision to prosecute under a federal, rather than state, statute, notwithstanding the harsher penalties). This limited tolerance for certain kinds of judge-shopping (in contrast, for example, to our judicial system's complete intolerance of biased judges) echoes Judge Posner's observation in Tyson II that our system of criminal procedure far from being balanced every step of the way, is an aggregate of imbalances, 50 F.3d at 440, some of which favor the prosecution and some of which favor the defendant. 120 Most importantly, as further discussed in later sections of this opinion, Mr. Pearson was tried before an impartial judge, under the correct standard of proof and with the assistance of counsel. Neder, 119 S.Ct. at 1834. [A] fairly selected, impartial jury was instructed to consider all of the evidence and argument. . . . Id. Moreover, the allegedly improperly selected judge committed no reversible legal errors and was not the trier of fact. See United States v. Jordan, 49 F.3d 152, 159 (5th Cir. 1995) (affirming conviction but remanding for resentencing when the judge erred in failing to recuse herself and distinguishing between the judge's role in ruling on legal questions at trial and her role as a factfinder at sentencing). Although public confidence in our judicial system may be undermined to some degree by a prosecutor's manipulation of the case assignment system, we believe that it would also be undermined by requiring a second trial of a defendant who was convicted by a properly selected and instructed jury that considered the evidence and found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a trial conducted by a judge who committed no reversible errors. 121 In this instance, we are confident that the District of Kansas can adopt an assignment system that prevents prosecutors from selecting judges on the basis of the order of the defendants' names in superseding indictments. Our confidence in the adoption of such a system and our assessment of the fairness of the trial that Mr Pearson actually received convince us that, in the exercise of our supervisory powers, we need not vacate Mr. Pearson's conviction.