A visiting judge is a judge appointed to hear a case as a member of a court to which he or she does not ordinarily belong. In
United States federal courts
The federal judiciary of the United States is one of the three branches of the federal government of the United States organized under the Constitution of the United States, United States Constitution and Law of the United States, laws of the fed ...
, this is referred to as an assignment "by designation" of the Chief Justice of the United States (for inter-
circuit assignments) or the
Circuit Chief Judge (for intra-circuit assignments), and is authorized by (for active district judges) or (for retired justices and judges).
In many
United States Courts of Appeals it is not uncommon for a
district judge to sit on a panel as a visiting judge; less frequently it is a judge from another circuit (in active service or, more commonly, in
senior status). Retired Supreme Court justices have done the same, including Justices
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor (March 26, 1930 – December 1, 2023) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, O' ...
,
David Souter
David Hackett Souter ( ; September 17, 1939 – May 8, 2025) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1990 until his retirement in 2009. Appointed by President George H ...
, and
Stephen Breyer
Stephen Gerald Breyer ( ; born August 15, 1938) is an American lawyer and retired jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and r ...
,
and very unusually, sitting justices (in 1984, for example,
Justice
In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...
William Rehnquist
William Hubbs Rehnquist (October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American attorney who served as the 16th chief justice of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2005, having previously been an associate justice from 1972 to 1986. ...
served as a visiting judge for a
jury trial
A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial, in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions.
Jury trials are increasingly used ...
in the
).
This is sometimes done to ease caseload pressures, and sometimes (as in Rehnquist's case) for experience.
[ Discussing Frank H. Easterbrook on the ]United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (in case citations, 7th Cir.) is the U.S. United States federal court, federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the United States district court, courts in the following United Stat ...
. In other cases, notably those of some judges in senior status, the individual may sit in a different court for personal reasons (such as sitting in areas popular with retirees such as Florida or in a person's hometown).
References
External links
* {{cite web , title= Have Robe, Will Travel , author-link= Richard G. Kopf , last= Kopf , first= Richard George , url= http://herculesandtheumpire.com/2013/07/28/have-robe-will-travel/ , date= July 28, 2013 , access-date= July 28, 2013 , website= Hercules and the Umpire: The Role of the Federal Trial Judge , archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140709040252/http://herculesandtheumpire.com/2013/07/28/have-robe-will-travel/, archive-date= July 9, 2014, quote= A United States federal district judge's anecdotal description of the designation process: Let’s say you are prosecuting or defending a criminal or civil case in your local federal district court, and, out of the blue, your case get reassigned. Not only do you have new judge, but the new judge is a senior status district judge from far away.... How does that happen? Here’s a primer.
Judges