You don’t know it, but there is a stealthy movement for federal judges to get priority treatment for vaccination from COVID-19. I won’t go into detail how I know about the “we are special movement,” but I am not lying. It’s true and its pervasive. It goes all the way to the mother ship, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
“Great British Baking Show Judge” Prue Leith, aged 80, was among the first to get the magic vax in the UK.
There is no doubt that COVID-19 has wreaked havoc in the federal courts. For example, in our little court we suspended trying cases in the spring, started again but have since stopped again. We aren’t trying jury cases for December and January.
The plague has hit an Article III judge in our court, numerous probation officers and deputy clerks. Potential jurors are scared.
For a while, we picked juries in criminal cases using two courtrooms so 22 people could socially distance in each courtroom. While our clerks did a fantastic job, jury selection was ultra-challenging.
You can’t get into our courthouse without a mask. Your temperature is taken every time you enter. You must always wear the mask unless a judge gives his, her or their (pick your personal pronoun) dispensation.
It has been a nightmare.
But now we apparently have wonder drugs but not enough, at present, to go around. So special people get them first. Silently the federal judiciary is trying to cut in line and get special treatment. That bothers me for reasons you might guess and for reasons that you could not know because you don’t belong to the federal judges’ club.
In my view, federal judges (save for Supreme Court Justices) are not special when it comes to getting a vaccine! But I would be interested to know what practitioners think. So, tell me what you think, please.
Richard G. Kopf
Senior United States District Judge (Nebraska)
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