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By Benjamin Weiser
But there is one
unchallenged king of delayed decisions: Judge George B. Daniels of
Federal District Court in Manhattan, who, the latest statistics
show, had 289 motions in civil cases pending for more than six
months, Judge Daniels
holds a record
by far the highest total of
any federal judge in the nation.
Regina Adams waited three
Of course, court delays
are an age-old problem. The judge's total is more than 100 ahead of the second-ranked judge, who is from South Carolina and has 171. On the Manhattan federal bench, Judge Daniels has more than three times the number of these motions than the next judge, who has 91. Federal judges, to be sure, often need time to decide difficult legal questions. But some of Judge Daniels's critics suggest that his approach is the judicial equivalent of a lawyer neglecting a client's case. Delays can be frustrating and disillusioning; they make judges seem imperious to litigants, who often put their lives on hold as they await a decision. Regina Adams, the Queens woman in the pension case, said, "It was really hard, with all the bill collectors down my neck." Court records and interviews show that in at least eight cases, including Mrs. Adams's, people were so frustrated by Judge Daniels's slow pace that they went over his head. They filed petitions with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit asking that it order Judge Daniels to rule or perhaps transfer their cases to another judge. Typically, shortly after the petitions were filed in the higher court, Judge Daniels did rule. Judge Daniels, who joined the bench in April 2000, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. His list of pending motions, sometimes several in a case, cites reasons for some delays, like "complexity of case," "heavy criminal and civil caseload" and "voluminous brief/transcripts to be read." But in other cases, including several that led to petitions to the Court of Appeals, the list says, "no comment on status." Judge Michael B. Mukasey, chief judge of the Federal District Court, who has received repeated complaints about the delays, said that he thought Judge Daniels had been tackling his backlog, and that the year-old statistics did not offer the clearest picture. "Judge Daniels and I have spoken about this," he said, "and I have every reason to believe that to the extent that it's a problem, which is less than the raw numbers appear to indicate, it's being addressed by him and his staff." "As an institutional matter," Judge Mukasey added, "obviously inordinate delay is always a concern." Federal courts have historically been regarded as far more efficient than state systems, but there is apparently little that can be done when a federal judge, who enjoys lifetime tenure, moves too slowly on a civil motion. In criminal cases, in which deadlines are more enforceable, delays do not appear to have been a problem in Judge Daniels's cases. But a review of the civil cases in which the appeals court was asked to intervene with Judge Daniels shows what can happen when the wheels of justice effectively grind to a halt. A Woman's Quest For Regina Adams, the issue seemed clear. In 1997, after her former husband, Stanley, a bus driver, died, she began receiving a survivor's pension benefit of $1,178 a month. But the next year, the checks stopped. Mrs. Adams, then in her late 60's, was confused. Although she and Mr. Adams had been divorced, he had made her the beneficiary of his pension plan. Then, she says, she discovered that her husband's new wife, to whom he had been married for less than a year, had also made a claim for his benefits. In 1999, the pension fund filed a federal lawsuit, asking the court to decide which woman should receive Mr. Adams's benefits. In April 2000, the suit was assigned to Judge Daniels. By August 2000, the parties had filed their legal papers and were awaiting a decision. But as the months passed, no ruling was issued. Mrs. Adams, a composer of songs like "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" (recorded by Lionel Hampton), said her bills mounted and she began to have financial troubles. In January 2002, after 17 months, her lawyer, Edgar Pauk, wrote to Judge Daniels, asking that he make the case a priority. "While I understand that the court has innumerable claims on its time, my client is over 70 years old," Mr. Pauk wrote. He received no response to that letter. What then followed was a series of calls and letters, which were met with silence or with assurances from the judge's aides that action was imminent, as Mr. Pauk explained in a later submission to the appeals court. The judge was working on a decision "as we speak," Mr. Pauk said one assistant told him. "On top of the list," he said he was told in a later call. The case was second in line, he was told in yet another call, in June 2003. But no ruling came. By summer, Mrs. Adams said, collection agencies were becoming more threatening. "She just couldn't take it," said Christopher Dagg, a lawyer with Legal Services for the Elderly, which helped her send letters to creditors, explaining her predicament. Her daughter lent her money. Mr. Pauk called Judge Daniels's chambers twice more in August and early September, but the calls were not returned, he wrote. Finally, on Sept. 26, 2003, more than three years after the motions had been submitted, Mr. Pauk filed a request, known as a petition for writ of mandamus, with the appeals court, asking that it intervene. Such a move is highly unusual and even potentially risky, lawyers say, as it can offend a lower- court judge who still has to decide a case. "In her case justice delayed is truly justice denied," Mr. Pauk wrote in his submission. Three weeks later, and before the appeals court responded, Judge Daniels filed a ruling that would allow Mrs. Adams to begin getting the pension checks again, and the case was settled, with Mrs. Adams also receiving what she was owed - about $75,000, Mr. Pauk said. A Pattern of Delays Mrs. Adams's experience seems typical, a review of cases shows. If there has been a common course in the cases pending before Judge Daniels, it is this: the plaintiffs and their lawyers wait one, two, or three years for a ruling, growing increasingly restless and perplexed. When they are completely exasperated, they write to the appeals court. Judge Daniels then usually acts. In some cases, the appeals court would respond by issuing a brief order that said it would not intervene immediately, but that the plaintiff could come back if the judge did not act within a specific period, like 30 days. But court records and interviews make clear that by then, the damage was often done. In 1999, Charisse Johnson filed a lawsuit, contending that the rights of her son Isaac, who is African-American, were violated when he was included in a research study of black and Hispanic boys that excluded whites, and was given a dose of a harmful drug. By May 15, 2000, both Ms. Johnson and the defendants, who denied the allegations, had filed their motions. But more than three years passed without a ruling. Ms. Johnson's lawyers, K. C. Okoli and Rudy M. Brown, at last filed a petition with the appeals court. Their client was beginning to blame them for the delays, they wrote. On Nov. 18, 2003, one day before a panel of the appeals court issued its standard brief order, Judge Daniels ruled, dismissing some counts and defendants and allowing others to remain in the case. By the time of the ruling, Isaac was 17. The lawsuit is still pending. His mother said the delay only added to her son's problem. "I can't give him no answer. Just saying, 'We have to wait.' " she said. "And he's asking me, 'Why are we still waiting when it's all there?' " A plaintiff in another case, Dr. Michael Hall, said he was outraged that he had to wait more than 19 months for Judge Daniels to rule in his suit against a hospital that he claimed had fired him for complaining about its treatment of black patients. The hospital, denying wrongdoing, called the allegations baseless and sought dismissal of the suit. Dr. Hall's lawyer, Ambrose Wotorson, finally asked the court of appeals to order Judge Daniels to rule. Within weeks the judge dismissed the complaint as being legally insufficient. "It must have been sitting in the bottom of the drawer," Dr. Hall said. "I don't think he ever really read it." (The appeals court recently upheld the dismissal.) Perhaps, some lawyers have suggested, Judge Daniels wants to resolve his cases quickly, but is like many a tortured writer who has trouble finishing a draft until an editor demands that it be turned in. Take the case of a Manhattan couple who sued New York City, claiming that child welfare workers had illegally removed their children, based on spurious abuse allegations. The city denied wrongdoing, and asked the judge to dismiss the case. "I'll give you a decision as quickly as I can," Judge Daniels said after oral arguments in April 2001. But more than three years passed without a ruling, despite numerous calls to chambers by the family's lawyers. Finally, in June 2004, one lawyer, Carolyn A. Kubitschek, wrote to Judge Daniels, and even attached a copy of the spring 2003 list of delayed cases locally, which included a total of 255 pending motions for the judge at the time. "My clients are entitled to justice on their case," she wrote. In July, she asked the appeals court to intervene, saying the judge's failure to render a decision "is intolerable." About a week later, Judge Daniels ruled, allowing almost all of the family's claims to go forward. Ms. Kubitschek, praising the ruling itself, speculated that Judge Daniels was perhaps "a kind of perfectionist who, after he's made a decision, wants to make it perfect, and even though it's very good, he doesn't issue it because he's trying to polish it up." For Some, Late Is Never For one plaintiff, Jose Soto, the delay before Judge Daniels was so long that he never got to learn the result of his case. Mr. Soto, acting without a lawyer, filed a petition in August 2000 with the federal court, seeking to challenge his state conviction and sentence in a burglary case. He cited ineffectiveness of counsel and other grounds. Mr. Soto, who was about 40 and had a long criminal record, documents show, also wrote in the petition that he was H.I.V.-positive. The case was assigned to Judge Daniels in February 2001, the docket shows. With no ruling, Mr. Soto wrote to the Court of Appeals in September, seeking help. In a short order two months later, the appeals court reassured him that "we have no reason to doubt" Judge Daniels will rule "with reasonable promptness." But 19 months passed. Then, in June 2003, Judge Daniels referred the case to a magistrate judge for review, the docket shows. Within days, the magistrate judge, James C. Francis IV, issued a report. He recommended that Mr. Soto's petition be dismissed as moot. Mr. Soto, he wrote, had died one month earlier. Last April, Judge Daniels issued a short order saying he was adopting the magistrate's report, and dismissed the case. |
They
are kept in federal courthouses across the United States, although,
understandably, they are not prominently displayed: lists of cases
that have dragged on for months or even years, often because a judge
has failed to make a key ruling.
There
was the woman in Queens who had to fend off creditors while she
waited more than three years for the judge to decide that she was
entitled to her late ex-husband's pension benefits. And there was
the prisoner with H.I.V. who filed a petition challenging his state
court conviction. By the time Judge Daniels got around to issuing an
order - three years later - the prisoner had died.|
A Feast
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