United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York

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Eastern District of New York
Second Circuit
Fedbadgesmall.png
Judgeships
Posts: 15
Judges: 11
Vacancies: 4
Judges
Chief: Margo Brodie
Active judges: Joan Azrack, Margo Brodie, Gary R. Brown, Pamela Ki Mai Chen, LaShann Moutique DeArcy Hall, Ann M. Donnelly, Diane Gujarati, Eric Komitee, Rachel Kovner, William Kuntz, Kiyo Matsumoto

Senior judges:
Carol Amon, Frederic Block, Brian Cogan, Raymond Dearie, Nicholas Garaufis, Nina Gershon, Leo Glasser, Denis Hurley, Dora Irizarry, Sterling Johnson, Edward Korman, Allyne Ross, Joanna Seybert, Eric Vitaliano


The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York is one of 94 United States district courts. The courthouses are located in Brooklyn and Central Islip. When decisions of the court are appealed, they are appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit based in Lower Manhattan at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Federal Courthouse.

Vacancies[edit]

See also: Current federal judicial vacancies

There are four current vacancies on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, out of the court's 15 judicial positions.

Pending nominations[edit]

There are no pending nominees for this court.


Active judges[edit]

Article III judges[edit]

Judge Appointed By Assumed Office Bachelors Law

Kiyo Matsumoto

George W. Bush (R)

July 22, 2008

University of California, Berkeley, 1976

Georgetown University Law Center, 1981

William Kuntz

Barack Obama (D)

October 4, 2011

Harvard, 1972

Harvard Law, 1977

Margo Brodie

Barack Obama (D)

February 29, 2012

St. Francis College, 1988

University of Pennsylvania Law School, 1991

Pamela Ki Mai Chen

Barack Obama (D)

March 5, 2013

University of Michigan, 1983

Georgetown University Law Center, 1986

Joan Azrack

Barack Obama (D)

December 19, 2014

Rutgers University, 1974

New York Law School, 1979

Ann M. Donnelly

Barack Obama (D)

October 21, 2015

University of Michigan, 1981

The Ohio State University, Moritz School of Law, 1984

LaShann Moutique DeArcy Hall

Barack Obama (D)

November 17, 2015

Antioch College, 1992

Howard University School of Law, 2000

Rachel Kovner

Donald Trump (R)

October 17, 2019

Harvard College, 2001

Stanford Law School, 2006

Eric Komitee

Donald Trump (R)

December 5, 2019

Emory University, 1992

New York University Law School, 1995

Gary R. Brown

Donald Trump (R)

December 31, 2019

Columbia College, 1985

Yale Law School, 1988

Diane Gujarati

Donald Trump (R)

September 18, 2020

Barnard College, 1990

Yale Law School, 1995


Active Article III judges by appointing political party[edit]

The list below displays the number of active judges by the party of the appointing president. It does not reflect how a judge may rule on specific cases or their own political preferences.

  • Democrat appointed: 6
  • Republican appointed: 5

Senior judges[edit]

Judge Appointed By Assumed Office Bachelors Law

Leo Glasser

Ronald Reagan (R)

July 1, 1993

The City College of New York, 1943

Brooklyn Law, 1948

Sterling Johnson

George H.W. Bush (R)

June 1, 2003

Brooklyn College, 1963

Brooklyn Law School, 1966

Denis Hurley

George H.W. Bush (R)

December 18, 2004

University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business, 1959

Fordham University School of Law, 1966

Frederic Block

Bill Clinton (D)

September 1, 2005

Indiana University, 1956

Cornell Law, 1959

Edward Korman

Ronald Reagan (R)

October 25, 2007

Brooklyn College, 1963

Brooklyn Law School, 1966

Nina Gershon

Bill Clinton (D)

October 16, 2008

Cornell, 1962

Yale Law, 1965

Raymond Dearie

Ronald Reagan (R)

April 3, 2011

Fairfield University, 1966

St. John's University School of Law, 1969

Allyne Ross

Bill Clinton (D)

April 5, 2011

Wellesley College, 1967

Harvard Law, 1970

Joanna Seybert

Bill Clinton (D)

January 13, 2014

University of Cincinnati, 1967

St. John's University School of Law, 1971

Nicholas Garaufis

Bill Clinton (D)

October 1, 2014

Columbia College, 1969

Columbia Law School, 1974

Carol Amon

George H.W. Bush (R)

November 30, 2016

College of William and Mary, 1968

University of Virginia School of Law, 1971

Eric Vitaliano

George W. Bush (R)

February 28, 2017

Fordham College, 1968

New York University School of Law, 1971

Dora Irizarry

George W. Bush (R)

January 26, 2020

Yale, 1976

Columbia University School of Law, 1979

Brian Cogan

George W. Bush (R)

June 12, 2020

University of Illinois, 1975

Cornell Law, 1979


Senior judges by appointing political party[edit]

The list below displays the number of senior judges by the party of the appointing president. It does not reflect how a judge may rule on specific cases or their own political preferences.

  • Democrat appointed: 5
  • Republican appointed: 9

Magistrate judges[edit]

Federal magistrate judges are federal judges who serve in United States district courts, but they are not appointed by the president and they do not serve life terms. Magistrate judges are assigned duties by the district judges in the district in which they serve. They may preside over most phases of federal proceedings, except for criminal felony trials. The specific duties of a magistrate judge vary from district to district, but the responsibilities always include handling matters that would otherwise be on the dockets of the district judges. Full-time magistrate judges serve for renewable terms of eight years. Some federal district courts have part-time magistrate judges, who serve for renewable terms of four years.[1]

Judge Appointed By Assumed Office Bachelors Law

Anne Shields

State University of New York, Stonybrook

St. John's University School of Law

Steven Gold

Wesleyan University, 1977

Yale Law School, 1980

Steven Locke

Tufts University

Hofstra University Law

Arlene Lindsay

1994

University of Dayton, 1968

New York University Law, 1975

Roanne Mann

1994

Yale College, 1972

Stanford Law School, 1975

Cheryl Pollak

November 1, 1995

Princeton, 1975

University of Chicago Law, 1978

Lois Bloom

2001

State University of New York, Stony Brook, 1981

State University of New York, Buffalo School of Law, 1985

Ramon Reyes Jr.

2006

Cornell, 1988

Brooklyn Law, 1992

A. Kathleen Tomlinson

February 24, 2006

Rutgers University, 1972

St. John's University School of Law, 1987

Vera Scanlon

August 14, 2012

Columbia University

Yale University

Peggy Kuo

October 9, 2015

Yale University, 1985

Harvard Law School, 1988

Steven Tiscione

March 21, 2016

Hofstra University, 1999

Yale Law School, 2002

Sanket Bulsara

August 28, 2017

Harvard University, 1998

Harvard Law School, 2002

James R. Cho

United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York

April 5, 2021

University of Michigan

University of Minnesota Law School

James Wicks

United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York

April 26, 2021

Wheeling Jesuit College

St. John's University School of Law

Taryn A. Merkl

United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York

May 3, 2021

University of Michigan

Columbia Law School


Former chief judges[edit]

In order to qualify for the office of chief judge in one of the federal courts, a judge must have been in active service on the court for at least one year, be under the age of 65, and have not previously served as chief judge. A vacancy in the office of chief judge is filled by the judge highest in seniority among the group of qualified judges.

The chief judge serves for a term of seven years or until age 70, whichever occurs first. A statutory change in the 1950s created the seven-year term. The age restrictions are waived if no members of the court would otherwise be qualified for the position.

Unlike the chief justice of the United States, a chief judge returns to active service after the expiration of his or her term and does not create a vacancy on the bench by the fact of his or her promotion.[2]

Former judges[edit]

For information on judges of the Eastern District of New York, see former federal judges of the Eastern District of New York.

Jurisdiction[edit]

The Counties of the Eastern District of New York (click for larger map)

The Eastern District of New York has original jurisdiction over cases filed within its jurisdiction. These cases can include civil and criminal matters that fall under federal law.

The geographic jurisdiction of the Eastern District of New York consists of all the following counties in the eastern part of the state of New York.

Caseloads[edit]

This section contains court management statistics dating back to 2010. It was last updated in April 2021. Click [show] below for more information on caseload terms and definitions.

United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York caseload stats, 2010-2019
Year Cases Filed Cases Terminated Cases Pending Number of Judgeships Vacant Judgeship Months Average Total Filings per Judgeship Trials Completed per Judgeship Median time from filing to disposition, criminal Median time from filing to disposition, civil Three-year civil cases (#) Three-year civil cases (%)
2010 7,986 7,826 10,934 15 12 532 20 18 9 1,224 16
2011 7,610 7,526 9,747 15 27 507 22 15 9 1,155 15
2012 7,838 7,744 11,185 15 14 523 20 17 9 1,184 15
2013 8,817 7,813 12,156 15 2 588 18 22 9 1,218 14
2014 8,887 8,174 12,744 15 15 592 17 21 9 1,210 12
2015 8,854 8,785 12,771 15 29 590 16 23 10 1,331 14
2016 8,521 8,324 12,911 15 23 568 17 23 9 1,897 19
2017 9,069 9,314 12,672 15 46 605 16 19 9 1,759 18
2018 8,946 9,263 12,362 15 48 596 13 22 9 1,465 16
2019 8,600 8,495 12,192 15 52 573 14 22 8 1,594 17
Average 8,513 8,326 11,967 15 27 567 17 20 9 1,404 15

History[edit]

The Judiciary Act of 1789 organized the United States District Court for the District of New York as one federal district court with one judgeship, which was initially filled by James Duane. The District of New York, in turn, was assigned to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eastern Circuit. Both courts, the district and the circuit, became defunct when the Judiciary Act of 1801 reorganized the federal courts into six circuits. At that time, the District of New York was assigned to the Second Circuit, where all New York federal district courts have since remained.[3]

Judicial posts[edit]

The following table highlights the development of judicial posts for the Eastern District of New York:[3]

Year Statute Total Seats
September 1789 1 Stat. 73 1 (District of New York)
February 25, 1865 13 Stat. 438 1 (Creation of court)
June 25, 1910 36 Stat. 838 2
September 14, 1922 42 Stat. 837 3 (1 temporary)
February 28, 1929 45 Stat. 1409 5 (1 temporary)
August 19, 1935 49 Stat. 659 6
May 19, 1961 75 Stat. 80 8
June 2, 1970 84 Stat. 294 9
October 20, 1978 92 Stat. 1629 11
July 10, 1984 98 Stat. 333 12
December 1, 1990 104 Stat. 5089 15

Noteworthy cases[edit]

For a searchable list of notable decisions, please see Decisions for the Eastern District of New York.

Noteworthy events[edit]

Federal Judicial Conference recommendation (2019)[edit]

In March 2019, the Federal Judicial Conference (FJC) recommended that two judgeships be added to the district.[23] Based on FJC data, the district handled 539 weighted filings per judgeship from September 2017 to September 2018. Weighted filings are a specific metric used by the federal judiciary that accounts for the different amounts of time judges require to resolve types of civil and criminal cases. The national average in that period for weighted filings per judgeship was 513.[24]

The FJC is the policy-making body for the United States federal courts system. It was first organized as the Conference of Senior Circuit Judges in 1922.[25] The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States serves as chair of the conference. The members of the conference are the chief judge of each judicial circuit, the Chief Judge of the Court of International Trade, and a district judge from each regional judicial circuit.[26]

Federal courthouse[edit]

The court's main office is housed in the Theodore Roosevelt United States Courthouse in Brooklyn.[27]

About United States District Courts[edit]

The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal courts. There are 94 such courts. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of both law and equity.

There is a United States bankruptcy court and a number of bankruptcy judges associated with each United States district court. Each federal judicial district has at least one courthouse, and most districts have more than one.

There is at least one judicial district for each state, and one each for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. District courts in three insular areas—the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands—exercise the same jurisdiction as U.S. district courts. Despite their name, these courts are technically not District Courts of the United States. Judges on these territorial courts do not enjoy the protections of Article III of the Constitution, and serve terms of 10 years rather than for life.

There are currently 677 U.S. District Court judgeships.[28][29]

The number of federal district judge positions is set by the U.S. Congress in Title 28 of the U.S. Code, Section 133, which authorizes a set number of judge positions, or judgeships, making changes and adjustments in these numbers from time to time.

In order to relieve the pressure of trying the hundreds of thousands of cases brought before the federal district courts each year, many trials are tried by juries, along with a presiding judge.[30]

Appointments by president[edit]

The chart below shows the number of district court judges confirmed by the U.S. Senate through November 1 of the first year of each president's term in office. At this point in the term, President Biden made the most district court appointments with 19. President Reagan made 16, the second most for the presidents under study for this period. President Obama had appointed the fewest with three.


Judges by district[edit]

See also: Judicial vacancies in federal courts

The table below displays the number of judges in each district and indicates how many were appointed by presidents from each major political party. It also includes the number of vacancies in a district and how many pending nominations for that district are before the United States Senate. The table can be sorted by clicking the column headers above the line, and you can navigate through the pages by clicking the arrows at the top of the table. It is updated every Monday.


Judicial selection[edit]

The district courts are served by Article III federal judges who are appointed for life during "good behavior." They are usually first recommended by senators (or members of the House, occasionally). The President of the United States makes the appointments, which must then be confirmed by the U.S. Senate in accordance with Article III of the United States Constitution.[29]

Step ApprovedA Candidacy Proceeds DefeatedA Candidacy Halts
1. Recommendation made by Congress Member to the President President Nominates to Senate Judiciary Committee President Declines Nomination
2. Senate Judiciary Committee interviews Candidate Sends candidate to Senate for confirmation Returns candidate to President, who may re-nominate to Committee
3. Senate votes on candidate confirmation Candidate becomes federal judge Candidate does not receive judgeship

Magistrate judges[edit]

The district courts are also served by magistrate judges. Congress created the judicial office of federal magistrate in 1968. In 1990, the position title was changed to magistrate judge. The chief judge of each district appoints one or more magistrate judges, who discharge many of the ancillary duties of district judges so judges can handle more trials. There are both full-time and part-time magistrate judge positions, and these positions are assigned to the district courts according to caseload criteria (subject to funding by Congress). A full-time magistrate judge serves a term of eight years; a part-time magistrate judge's term of office is four years.[31]


See also[edit]

External links[edit]



Footnotes[edit]

  1. Federal Judicial Center, "Magistrate Judgeships," accessed April 29, 2021
  2. United States Courts, "Frequently Asked Questions," accessed April 23, 2021
  3. 3.0 3.1 Federal Judicial Center, "History of the Eastern District of New York," accessed May 25, 2021
  4. Department of Justice, "Irish National Pleads Guilty in New York to Crimes Relating to Illegal Trafficking of Endangered Rhinoceros Horns," November 5, 2013
  5. New York Times, "Rhino Horns: a) Increase Potency; b) Cure Cancer; or c) Bring a Prison Term," November 8, 2013
  6. Department of Justice, "Irish National Sentenced to Serve 14 Months in Prison for Trafficking of Endangered Rhinoceros Horns," January 10, 2014
  7. New York Times, "In Rhino Horn Case, Judge Sees a Criminal Instead of a ‘Naïve Kid’," January 10, 2014
  8. New York Daily News, "Vinny Gorgeous vows to act as own lawyer at death penalty murder trial," July 20, 2009
  9. New York Times, "For Mobster, a Life Term, Not His First, Offers Relief," June 1, 2011
  10. 10.0 10.1 New York Times, "Judge Finds Racial Bias in Fire Dept. Tests," July 23, 2009
  11. NBC New York, "FDNY's Hiring Practices Were Discriminatory: Judge," January 13, 2010
  12. New York Post, "Federal judge appoints former prosecutor to ensure fair minority treatment in FDNY," November 9, 2011
  13. New York Daily News, "Brooklyn Federal Judge orders state to find new housing for thousands of mentally ill adults," September 9, 2009
  14. FindLaw, "Judge Orders NYC: Get 4,500+ Special Housing Units for Mentally Ill in 3 Years," March 1, 2010
  15. New York Daily News, "Federal judge sides with city teacher Faith Kramer, who used vulgar terms during lesson on AIDS," May 21, 2010
  16. New York Daily News, "Judge Jack Weinstein rips NYPD on false arrests as brothers sue for $10M over wrongful narcs bust, November 30," 2009
  17. WSJ Law Blog, "A Case Pitting Spin Against Fraud," October 12, 2009
  18. New York Times, "Bear Stearns Ex-Managers to Pay $1 Million to Settle Fraud Case," February 13, 2012
  19. New York Times, "S.E.C. Reaches Settlement in Bear Stearns Fraud Case," February 9, 2012
  20. New York Times, "New York Wins Round in Fight Against Indian Tobacco Vendors," August 26, 2009
  21. United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, "City of New York v. Golden Feather Smoke Shop, Inc.," March 4, 2010
  22. New York Law Journal, "Circuit Reinstates RICO Action in Sale of Contraband Cigarettes," July 17, 2012
  23. Federal Judicial Conference, "March 2019 Recommendations," accessed July 25, 2019
  24. US Courts, "Table X-1A—Other Judicial Business (September 30, 2018)," accessed July 24, 2019
  25. US Courts, "Governance & the Judicial Conference," accessed July 25, 2019
  26. US Courts, "About the Judicial Conference," accessed July 25, 2019
  27. New York Times, "U.S. Courthouse Is Named for Theodore Roosevelt," December 30, 2008
  28. US Courts, "Federal Judgeships," accessed May 10, 2021 (archived)
  29. 29.0 29.1 U.S. Courts, "United States District Court Federal Judiciary Frequently Asked Questions," accessed May 10, 2021 (archived)
  30. United States District Courts, "District Courts," accessed May 10, 2021
  31. The 'Lectric Law Library, "Understanding the U.S. federal courts"




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