U.S. Magistrate Judges — Judicial Business 2023
Magistrate judges handle a broad range of criminal and civil proceedings in the district courts. In 2023, magistrate judges disposed of 1,234,002 matters, a decrease of 1 percent since 2022.
Overall, civil matters handled by magistrate judges on referral from district judges declined (down 2 percent to 423,431). However, in general civil cases (i.e., civil matters not involving appeals by prisoners or Social Security appeals), magistrate judges handled 3,489 more orders on non-dispositive motions (up 2 percent to 162,069) and issued 1,317 more reports and recommendations (up 9 percent to 15,760). They conducted fewer settlement conferences in general civil cases (down 9 percent to 17,468) and held 19 fewer evidentiary hearings (down 2 percent to 998). In Social Security cases, magistrate judges issued 2,348 reports and recommendations (down 36 percent) and issued 6,619 orders on non-dispositive motions (down 22 percent).
Changes Made to Tables
In the 2023 report, Judicial Business of the United States Courts no longer includes Table S-17, which has been replaced with Table M-7. In the data for total proceedings (i.e., total matters disposed of), Table M-7 includes the number of duties magistrate judges performed in civil consent cases, but does not include the number of terminated consent cases. In contrast, in the previously published Table S-17, the data for total proceedings did not include the number of duties magistrate judges performed in civil consent cases, but included the number of terminated consent cases. Therefore, some of the statistics used for year-to-year comparisons on the work of magistrate judges in this year’s report do not match the statistics used for the 2022 report.
Terminated consent cases (i.e., civil cases in which magistrate judges were the presiding judges for all proceedings on consent of the parties, including trials) fell 15 percent to 16,755. Of those cases, jury trials were held in 170 cases, and non-jury trials were held in 65 cases. The number of duties performed by magistrate judges in consent cases declined 6 percent to 67,901.
Magistrate judges handled 238,737 felony pretrial matters, a decrease of 3 percent. In felony cases, they ruled on 157,261 non-dispositive motions (down 2 percent) and issued reports and recommendations on 2,296 dispositive motions (down 11 percent). Magistrate judges conducted 29,358 felony guilty plea proceedings (down 3 percent).
The number of felony preliminary proceedings handled by magistrate judges rose 1 percent to 473,153. Compared with 2022, magistrate judges handled more search warrant applications (up 15 percent to 162,433) and material witness proceedings (up 5 percent to 6,681). Magistrate judges handled fewer arrest warrants (down 5 percent to 42,838), summonses (down 3 percent to 11,362), complaints (down 5 percent to 38,069), initial appearances (down 4 percent to 90,192), detention hearings (down 4 percent to 44,298), preliminary examinations (down 6 percent to 17,966), arraignments (down 6 percent to 44,896), attorney appointments (down 7 percent to 6,322) and bail reviews, forfeitures, and Nebbia hearings (down 13 percent to 8,096).
Magistrate judges disposed of Class A misdemeanor cases with 3,597 defendants (up 6 percent) and disposed of petty offense cases with 25,981 defendants (down less than 1 percent).
In non-consent prisoner cases, including cases involving habeas corpus petitions and civil rights claims, magistrate judges issued 20,846 reports and recommendations (down 2 percent) and conducted 163 evidentiary hearings (28 fewer than in 2022).
Since 2019, the total number of matters disposed of by magistrate judges has decreased 16 percent. Magistrate judges have handled fewer felony preliminary proceedings (down 14 percent) and fewer felony pretrial matters (down 2 percent). The number of civil matters they have handled on referral from district judges has dropped 8 percent. Compared with 2019, magistrate judges have handled fewer Class A misdemeanor cases (down 23 percent), petty offense cases (down 79 percent), reports and recommendations in Social Security appeals (down 47 percent), reports and recommendations in prisoner cases (down 18 percent), and civil cases on consent (down 6 percent).
For data on the work of magistrate judges, see the M series of tables.