Judicial Conference Convenes Fall Meeting

At its biannual meeting today in Washington, the Judicial Conference of the United States voted to ask its Committees on Codes of Conduct and Financial Disclosure to consider if the Conference should encourage all courts to maintain, in the clerk's office, a list for each judge of the companies in which the judge, or the judge's spouse, or minor child residing in the household, has a financial interest requiring recusal.

In addition, the Judicial Conference's Financial Disclosure Committee has directed that the AO Form 10A, which is used to request a copy of a disclosure report, will be available on the Judiciary's Internet site; the requirement that any requests for reports be notarized be deleted; and the cost for copying reports will be reduced from 50 cents a page to 20.

The Financial Disclosure Committee found "these changes to be positive steps in improving public access to financial disclosure reports without compromising the security of judges."

In other action, the Conference:

• Agreed to urge the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to continue the long-standing tradition of appointing a federal judge to chair the U.S. Sentencing Commission. If Congress adjourns next month without acting on any of the Commission's six pending vacancies, Judge Richard P. Conaboy the Commission's chairman will be the only remaining commissioner. He has announced his resignation effective October 31. In the Commission's 14 year history, its chairman has always been a federal judge.
• Agreed to establish an Internet fee of 7 cents a page for public users of the Judiciary's Public Access to Court Electronic Records system (PACER). The Judiciary is in its ninth year of offering various electronic access services. Registering more than 7 million users a year, PACER provides legal, business, community and other interested parties direct, rapid and easy access to appellate slip opinions, argument calendars, case dockets, and other useful courthouse information. The current fee for the use of PACER is 60 cents per minute. The application of Internet technologies to this program may lower the operating costs of the PACER system, make court and case information more widely available, and offer the opportunity to add information and services to the public at a modest cost.
  
  Since 1991, Congress has required the Judiciary to charge users a reasonable fee to reimburse the Judiciary for expenses incurred in providing these services. The revenue generated from the fees is used to fund the Judiciary's full range of electronic public access services. The funds also provide each court with hardware and software to support public access services.
  
  Courts may provide at no cost a variety of local court information, including local rules, court forms, news items, court calendars, opinions designated by the court for publication, and other information such as court hours, court location and telephone listings.
• Received and adopted the recommendations contained in the report entitled: Federal Death Penalty Cases: Recommendations Concerning the Cost and Quality of Defense Representation. The report addresses the cost, availability and quality of defense representation in federal death penalty cases and recommends steps that should be taken in order to keep expenditures in these cases within reasonable limits. It was prepared by the Subcommittee on Federal Death Penalty Cases of the Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services.
  
  In general, the subcommittee concluded that the judges assigned to federal death penalty cases have been appropriately conscious of the need to monitor and control defense costs. In the vast majority of cases, judges have been able to appoint well-qualified lawyers with sufficient experience in death penalty litigation.
  
  The number of defendants charged with offenses punishable by death has gone from 12 in 1991 to 153 in 1997. The cost of defending death penalty cases is almost always greater than the cost of defending non-death penalty cases. Nevertheless, the subcommittee believes that additional cost-containment measures should be implemented. Among the recommendations contained in the 107 page report are:
   

A copy of the report will be available on the U.S. Courts web site at www.uscourts.gov.

• Acted on numerous recommendations from the National Bankruptcy Review Commission (NBRC). The nine-member independent Commission studied issues and problems relating to the bankruptcy code and in October 1997 submitted a report containing more than 170 recommendations to Congress, the President, and the Chief Justice. Because some of the recommendations have a potential to impact on the workload and administration of the courts, they have been studied by relevant Conference committees. The following are among the recommendations addressed today by the Conference.

The Judicial Conference of the United States is the principal policy-making body for the federal court system. The Chief Justice serves as the presiding officer of the Conference, which is composed of the chief judges of the 13 courts of appeals, a district judge from each of the 12 geographic circuits, and the chief judge of the Court of International Trade. The Conference meets twice a year to consider administrative and policy issues affecting the court system and to make recommendations to Congress concerning legislation involving the Judicial Branch. A list of Conference members is attached.

JUDICIAL CONFERENCE OF THE UNITED STATES
September 1998

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Presiding

Chief Judge Juan R. Torruella, First Circuit 
Judge Joseph A. DiClerico, Jr , District of New Hampshire

Chief Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr, Second Circuit
Judge Peter C. Dorsey, District of Connecticut

Chief Judge Edward R. Becker, Third Circuit
Chief Judge Donald E. Ziegler, Western District of Pennsylvania

Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, Fourth Circuit 
Chief Judge Charles H. Haden II, Southern District of West Virginia

Chief Judge Henry A. Politz, Fifth Circuit
Judge William H. Barbour, Jr., Southern District of Mississippi

Chief Judge Boyce F. Martin, Jr., Sixth Circuit
Judge Thomas A. Wiseman, Jr.*, Middle District of Tennessee

Chief Judge Richard A. Posner, Seventh Circuit 
Judge Robert L. Miller, Jr., Northern District of Indiana

Chief Judge Pasco M. Bowman II, Eighth Circuit 
Judge James M. Rosenbaum, District of Minnesota

Chief Judge Procter Hug, Jr., Ninth Circuit
Judge Lloyd D. George, District of Nevada

Chief Judge Stephanie K. Seymour, Tenth Circuit 
Judge Ralph G. Thompson, Western District of Oklahoma

Chief Judge Joseph W. Hatchett, Eleventh Circuit
Judge Wm. Terrell Hodges, Middle District of Florida

Chief Judge Harry T. Edwards, District of Columbia Circuit 
Chief Judge Norma H. Johnson, District of Columbia

Chief Judge H. Robert Mayer, Federal Circuit
Chief Judge Gregory W. Carman, Court of International Trade

Conference Secretary: 
Leonidas Ralph Mecham, Director 
Administrative Office of U.S. Courts