President Signs Norton Bill Increasing Number of Superior Court Judges (4/24/08)

Washington, DC - At a hearing on her bill for an elected district attorney to improve the District's justice system, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said that this process has begun with the President's signing on April 18th of her bill that increases the number of D.C. Superior Court judges by three to 61. Federal law requires judges for the Superior Court, the trial court of jurisdiction for all criminal and civil matters, and for the D.C. Court of Appeals judges to be nominated by the President and approved by the Senate. Norton said that the bill corrects an unintended result of her prior bill that created the Family Court division with a fixed number of judges dedicated exclusively to children and families. The District of Columbia Family Court Act of 2001 that Norton wrote with former Rep. Tom DeLay brought the first change to the D.C. court system since it was created by the Home Rule Act by assuring that family matters would be handled by Superior Court judges who rotated to the Family Court division for a definite period.

The previous system required all 58 Superior Court judges to carry family and child cases. However to preserve the number of judges who process other criminal and civil cases at the same level of 58, more judges for the Superior Court had to be authorized. "Our Family Court bill has immensely improved attention to children and families and the processing of family law cases," Norton said, "but the awkward way Congress funded the much needed additional judges and magistrates and other improvements for families, unintentionally short changed other important criminal and civil processing." Because the Court is funded for the authorized 61 judges, there is no additional cost to the government. Norton said that rapid processing, particularly of criminal cases, is "an important factor in deterring crime" and the full complement of judges must be available. "The point was to improve the focus on families, not to make other important criminal and civil matters pay for these improvements."