Court Opinion

ID: 9490417
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:43:01.346138+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:05.331495
License: Public Domain

DENNIS, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I respectfully concur in the essential elements and result of the majority opinion.
Because we do not have appellate jurisdiction to review an order of the Judicial Council, as the majority observes, the question of whether we can issue a writ to the Judicial Council in aid of such non-existent jurisdiction seems to answer itself. However, because it is not necessary to consider the question in the present case, I do not join in Part III A of the majority opinion devoted to an inconclusive and, I believe, unprofitable' discussion of the subject.
Due to the fact that Chief Judge Buchmeyer’s orders clearly lie within our appellate jurisdiction, we may issue writs to the district court in aid of that jurisdiction, unless the Judicial Council’s order constitutes a valid administrative or disciplinary order that subsumed and removed the subject matter of Chief Judge Buchmeyer’s orders from our appellate jurisdiction. For essentially the same reasons assigned by the majority, I conclude that the Judicial Council’s .order was not a product of actions confined to matters within its delegated administrative or disciplinary authority but extended to matters that bear directly on the decision of individual cases. Consequently, the Judicial Council order was ineffective as a valid administrative or disciplinary order and was not capable of removing Chief Judge Bu-chmeyer’s orders from our appellate jurisdiction.
As the majority opinion makes- clear in Part III B and succeeding parts, Chief Judge Buchmeyer exceeded the lawful exercise of his prescribed jurisdiction in taking the eases from Judge McBryde and reassigning them to himself. Accordingly, I join in the majority’s decree insofar as it grants a writ of mandamus to the district court, vacates that court’s reassignment orders, and returns the cases to Judge McBryde’s docket.