United States magistrate judge

In United States federal courts, magistrate judges are judges appointed to assist U.S. district court judges in the performance of their duties. Magistrate judges generally oversee the first appearances of criminal defendants in federal court, set bail, and conduct other administrative duties. The position of magistrate judge or magistrate also exists in some unrelated state courts (see below).

Although they serve on federal courts, U.S. magistrate judges are not considered "federal judges" under Article Three of the United States Constitution. They do not have life tenure, and they are not nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Magistrate judges are appointed by a majority vote of the federal district judges of a particular district and serve terms of eight years if full-time, or four years if part-time, and may be reappointed. As of March 2009 there were 517 full-time and 42 part-time authorized magistrate judgeships, as well as one position combining magistrate judge and clerk of court.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.