Judges: Interpreter in the Front Line

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Lurleen Wallace now sits as Governor. Yet for Johnson, a rare Republican in, a Democratic state, legal vision and the dictates of conscience have always outweighed local pressure. He rejects labels—liberal, conservative or any other. His sole cause is not civil rights but the law. "I'm not a segregationist," he says, "but I'm not a crusader, either. I don't make the law. I don't create the facts. I interpret the law."

Such dispassion is all the more impressive now that the steam has gone out of the civil rights movement. Johnson could easily soft-pedal equal rights—many of the Confederacy's 70 U.S. district judges have done just that. But he goes on applying the law to the facts in every case. Says he: "I don't see how a judge who approaches these cases with any other philosophy, particularly if he was born and reared in the South, can discharge his oath and the responsibility of his office."

Questions & Answers. Unmentioned in the Constitution, that office goes back to 1789, when U.S. district courts were set up with jurisdiction limited largely to maritime cases and suits between citizens of different states. But as federal law grew after the Civil War, so did the need for U.S. trial courts with broader scope. In 1875, district courts were given jurisdiction over a wide range of federal questions. District judges now handle every sort of lawsuit under the federal sun—including antitrust cases, bank robberies, bankruptcies, draft evasion, obscenity suits, patent infringements, railroad disputes, tax dodging and habeas corpus petitions from state prisoners (up 36% since 1963). Also copyright infringements, kidnaping, moonshining cases, compensation for injuries at sea and auto accidents involving citizens of different states (20% of all civil cases), and such federal misdemeanors as trapping migratory birds, concealing letters in parcel-post packages. And a lot more.

The civil case load rises relentlessly over the years. From 58,293 cases in 1961, it climbed to 79,906 last year. One reason is that many lawyers prefer federal to state courts on the ground that the judges are abler, the jurors brighter and the rules fairer. It has not done any good to hike the minimum dollar amount involved in many federal suits to $10,000: lawyers simply sue for more. Though Congress has added 73 district judges since 1961, almost 10% of all civil cases still take more than three years to settle.

Power & Prestige. None of this discourages lawyers from seeking district judgeships; for the last 63 appointments, 800 volunteered their services. Away from the urban anonymity of such hydraheaded courts as New York's 24-judge Southern District, a local U.S. judge may control a federal fiefdom that makes him a prime public figure. The $30,000-a-year salary may seem low viewed from Wall Street or Chicago's LaSalle Street, but it goes a long way in most areas, and the status is unbeatable. Appointed for life (barring misconduct), district judges are untouched by re-election pressures and are subject to no real discipline save a higher court's reversal. Kings of their courtrooms, they can set the whole constitutional tone in their areas. They can speed up or delay cases, comment on trial evidence, discipline lawyers, hold gadflies in contempt, and try many matters without a jury.

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