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34 Third Branch 1 (2002)

handle is hein.journals/thirdbran34 and id is 1 raw text is: THE HIRD BRANCH Newsletter of the Federal Courts Vol. 34 Number I January 2002 ,n.rlal IssRH 2001 YEAR-END REPORT ON THE FEDERAL JUDICIARY Overview The 2001 Year-End Re- port on the Federal Judi- ciary is my 161h. 2001 will surely be remembered by the entire country, includ- ing the federal Judiciary, for the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the an- thrax contamination that followed. I received word of the first strike on the World Trade Center as the 26 federal judges who are members of the Judicial Conference of the United States were preparing to convene at the Supreme Court the morning of Sep- tember 11. It soon became clear that we would have to cancel the Conference session and evacuate the Chief ustic building, the first cancel- lation of a Conference meeting since its creation in 1922. Just six and a half weeks later, our Court was forced to evacuate the building again after traces of anthrax were found in our off-site mail facil- ity. For the first time since our build- ing opened in 1935, the Court heard arguments in another location-the ceremonial courtroom in the District e William H. Rehnquist of Columbia E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse. The Court was also forced out of its quarters in the Capitol when the British burned part of the Capitol building in August 1814. Despite the effects of events since September 11, the federal courts, along with the rest of our govern- ment, have gotten back to business, even if not business as usua' Our Court has kept its argument sched- ule, federal (and state) courts have met, albeit with heightened secu- rity, and within three weeks, the Judicial Conference completed by mail all of the business that had been on the schedule for Septem- ber 11 and that could not be post- poned. Ensuring a Well-Qualified and Fully Staffed Judicial Branch The federal courts were created by the Judiciary Act of 1789, which established a Supreme Court and divided the country into three cir- cuits and 13 districts. This struc- ture has obviously changed greatly since 1789, but one thing has not changed: the federal courts have functioned through wars, natural disasters, and terrorist attacks. During times such as these, the role of the courts becomes even more important in order to enforce the rule of law. To continue func- tioning effectively and efficiently, however, the courts must be ap- propriately staffed. This means that necessary judgeships must be T

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