List of presidents of the United States by judicial appointments

Following is a list indicating the number of Article III federal judicial appointments made by each president of the United States. The number of judicial offices has risen significantly from the time when Washington's 39 appointments were sufficient to maintain the entire federal judiciary for eight years. As of January 2020, there are 874 authorized Article III judgeships – 9 on the Supreme Court, 179 on the Courts of Appeals, 677 for the district courts including 10 temporary judgeships, and 9 on the United States Court of International Trade.[1]

As the first president, George Washington appointed the entire federal judiciary. His record of eleven Supreme Court appointments still stands.
President Ronald Reagan appointed 383 federal judges, more than any other president.

To date, Ronald Reagan has appointed the largest number of federal judges, with 383, followed closely by Bill Clinton with 378. William Henry Harrison, who died 31 days after his inauguration, is the only president to have appointed no federal judges.

How appointments are counted

In many instances, the number of judgeships appointed is fewer than the number of people appointed as judges, because a president may appoint the same person as a judge to different courts over the course of his presidency. For example, Donald Trump appointed Amy Coney Barrett to the Seventh Circuit, and later appointed her to the Supreme Court. There are also instances in which an individual is appointed to multiple district courts in a single state. For example, Donald Trump appointed John F. Heil III to the Eastern, Northern, and Western Districts of Oklahoma.

In some rare instances, a federal judge resigns their judgeship, and is later reappointed to a federal judgeship – possibly even to the same court – by a different president. A noted example of this is that of Charles Evans Hughes, who resigned from the United States Supreme Court to run for president against Woodrow Wilson, and was later returned to the court as Chief Justice of the United States by Herbert Hoover. Another rare situation occurs where a court that has not been specifically designated as an Article III court is transformed into an Article III court. This occurred in 1958 when the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals was changed from an Article I court to an Article III court. In that case, judges who were not initially appointed to an Article III court may become Article III judges without being specifically appointed by the sitting president, or approved by the sitting Senate. However, judges on such bodies have previously been appointed to Article I courts by the president, and those appointments have been approved by the Senate, which must also vote in favor of the legislation that would change the status of such judges. Appointments to Article I courts are not counted in each president's total number of appointments.

The list does not include nominees who were rejected by Congress before having served, but does include the twenty-two recess appointments who were not confirmed by the Senate after having served for some period. The most famous instance of such a post-appointment rejection is that of George Washington's recess appointment of John Rutledge as Chief Justice during a congressional recess in July, 1795. Because of Rutledge's political views and occasional mental illness, the Senate rejected his nomination in December of that year, and Rutledge subsequently attempted suicide and then resigned.

Judicial appointments by president

Because appointees to the short lived United States Commerce Court were duly appointed as United States circuit judges, they are counted as circuit judges. Those individuals appointed to the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals and the United States Court of Claims during the period those courts existed as Article III Courts are counted as circuit judges. Individuals appointed to the United States Customs Court during its existence as an Article III Court and to the United States Court of International Trade are counted as district judges.

All judicial appointments Currently active[2] Currently senior status[2]
President Supreme Court
justices
Circuit judges District judges Total Supreme Court
justices
Circuit judges District judges Total Supreme Court
justices
Circuit judges District judges Total
George Washington1102839
John Adams315422
Thomas Jefferson37919
James Madison22913
James Monroe102122
John Quincy Adams101112
Andrew Jackson601824
Martin Van Buren20810
William Henry Harrison0000
John Tyler1067
James K. Polk21710
Zachary Taylor0044
Millard Fillmore1056
Franklin Pierce131216
James Buchanan1078
Abraham Lincoln502732
Andrew Johnson0099
Ulysses S. Grant4103246
Rutherford B. Hayes241622
James A. Garfield1135
Chester A. Arthur241521
Grover Cleveland4113045
Benjamin Harrison4122642
William McKinley162835
Theodore Roosevelt3195880
William Howard Taft6[3]133857
Woodrow Wilson3205275
Warren G. Harding464252
Calvin Coolidge1176482
Herbert Hoover3164362
Franklin D. Roosevelt9[3]51133193
Harry S. Truman427102133
Dwight D. Eisenhower549130184
John F. Kennedy222102126
Lyndon B. Johnson2461361840011
Richard Nixon4511802350336
Gerald Ford11252650257
Jimmy Carter05920326200110113142
Ronald Reagan4[3]8329638306101623598135
George H. W. Bush2421491931571312279102
Bill Clinton2663103781295183023148171
George W. Bush26226332723212515901697112
Barack Obama2552723292502613130202
Donald Trump3541772343531732290000
Joe Biden000000000000
TOTAL1209563,1924,26891756288133114462577
All judicial appointments Currently active Currently senior status
President Supreme Court
justices
Circuit judges District judges Total Supreme Court
justices
Circuit judges District judges Total Supreme Court
justices
Circuit judges District judges Total

Article I appointments

The appointment of Article I judges is more difficult to count, because a large number of positions appointed by the president have quasi-judicial functions. Some Article I judges, however, are clearly designated, such as the judges of the United States Court of Federal Claims, the United States Tax Court, and the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. As with Article III judges, the number of Article I appointees that could be characterized as judges increased substantially beginning in the twentieth century.

Notes

  1. Federal Judgeships, United States Courts.
  2. As of December 21, 2020
  3. One of these appointments involved elevating a sitting Associate Justice to Chief Justice of the United States.

Sources

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