THE HON. JAMES K. BREDAR, Chief District Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Maryland
serves on the Federal Judiciary’s National Coronavirus Task Force. MSBA Executive Director, Victor Velazquez, and Director of Member Experience, Shaoli Katana, sat down with Judge Bredar to learn a little bit more about the Task Force, his role, and the Federal Judiciary's response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
You currently serve on the Federal Judiciary’s National Coronavirus Task Force, where you are involved in the bench’s response to the COVID-19 crisis with other chief judges, department heads, and court executives from around the country. Quite an honor. What does that involve? How has your Committee approached the emergency and coordination efforts? I was asked to serve along with three other judges (two other chief district judges and one court of appeals chief judge). To understand the role, you need to understand how the federal judiciary works. Governance in the federal judiciary is very flat. Most of the administrative authority or responsibility resides with individual chief judges in districts and circuits. There is a lot of vertical authority. Certainly the Supreme Court has authority when deciding cases. We have a Judicial Conference that sets broad policies for the judiciary. But in terms of day to day operations, the chief judges and their respective courts have generally had the final authority. So when you have a crisis, it comes with a challenge for an organization with flat governance structures. We want courts to be independent, we want them to be independent of each other, in terms of their decisional processes in ordinary circumstances, but that’s maybe not ideal in a crisis. That is the arrangement that we have. So a committee like ours doesn’t issue edicts or directives to courts. It serves a coordinating role. It gives guidance, serves as a clearinghouse. The most valuable thing the Committee has done is that our internal computer system, that we have a page addressing Coronavirus issues and it’s essentially a bulletin board where we have hundreds of FAQs that are organized by topic, available for courts to tap into and see what other courts are doing, what the guidance might be from Washington, what the guidance might be from our committee. It’s also a repository for the myriad standing and general orders from courts.
Although clearly an honor to be asked to serve as a leader in this way, it must be taxing given everything else happening. How are you balancing this role amongst all your other responsibilities? Many people are asked to do more in a time of crisis, I'm happy to jump in with everything I've got, and you can always do more than you think you can. One of things that is permitted - a lot of things evolve informally in a situation like this. Over the weeks there has been a coming together of a group of chief judges that bridge both sides of the Appalachians. I think there are 15 of us at this point. We share thoughts and ideas on a daily basis. But I think it’s also been useful to the task force, I serve as a bridge
between the smaller group and the larger national group. I have spent a lot of time communicating with colleagues in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Norfolk, Raleigh-Durham, Columbia (South Carolina), Charlotte, Charleston and Morgantown (West Virginia), where various different chief judges are operating from.
Is there a coordinated effort to set new deadlines and procedures across circuits? With the state? There is a high level of communication that’s occurring. We are communicating both through this committee and this smaller group that I just described (more regional). I think we influence each other significantly, we benefit from the discussions among our group. Then we tailor our orders and arrangements to fit our local circumstances. For instance, in deciding whether to expand our suspension out until June 5 - that was a decision that I made last week in consultation with my colleagues on bench in Maryland. As I was making the decision, I was in close consultation with colleagues in these other districts, seeing how they saw things, sorting out what issues and factors should be, that sort of thing. And in that regard, Chief Judge Barbera and I are also in communication. That’s clearly a level of coordination. There is no central authority obviously. The judge dictates what the answer will be. But if you can, it’s a strength - tailor it to local circumstances, along with an awareness of what colleagues in other districts are doing. I have known my fellow chief judges from different districts, we meet annually, compare notes from time to time on issues of common interest and concern, but nothing comes close to the communication that is occurring now on a daily basis where I have colleagues’ cell phones, and I am speaking to them, texting with them, sometimes several times a day. This is particularly between me and Chief Judge Mark Davis of the Eastern District of Virginia and Chief Judge Mark Hornak in the Western District of Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh. We are in close contact.
Several court systems impact our members - state, federal, and specialized court systems, including immigration and tax. Policies regarding court closings and court procedures vary widely amongst these courts. Can you speak to what considerations the Federal Judiciary has taken in responding to COVID-19? What have been the highest priorities for the Federal Judiciary in the Orders the Court has issued? This crisis has challenged us on many many levels. First of course, there is the principle that federal courts are always open, that citizens and others always have the right to seek MARYLAND BAR JOURNAL | ISSUE 1 2020
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