Thread by @GCCanaparo

We can't know for sure, but the docket does reveal that something unusual happened in this case. To show why, let me show you how dockets usually look shortly after case assignments in DDC. 1/

https://twitter.com/fedjudges/status/1903272560025817369

These are two dockets that I pulled at random. Couple things to notice. First, cases are assigned before there are any actions by the judge on the docket. This makes sense. How can a judge issue an order before he knows he has the case? 2/

Second, each docket entry has letters or a name at the end of it in parentheses. These tell you who created the docket entry. I know this from my time as a district court clerk. If I put something on the docket myself, it would say "(GC)." 3/

So in this docket, for example, we have three entries and three different creators of the dockets. The question is who are these people? The third is defense counsel, obviously. He filed an answer and his name is on the docket. 4/

The first appears to be a docketing clerk (not a law clerk). Where I clerked, all summonses and assignment notices were entered by docketing clerks. This seems to be the case with DDC too, and it seems to denote docketing clerks by putting a "z" at the front of the initials. 5/

Across a bunch of dockets I looked at, these routine entries are all entered by "z---". That leaves the second person here. This is almost certainly a law clerk---note that its the judge's initials preceded by "lc." Some judges have clerks upload written orders, 6/

some judges send written orders to the docketing clerks. But minute orders are different. Minute orders are not uploaded PDFs, they're manually typed onto the docket. Clerks, at the order of their judges, typically enter those because, of course, they're real orders. 7/

A docketing clerk wouldn't enter one because he/she wouldn't know what the judge wanted to say unless he was on the phone with the judge. But why do that? The law clerk is usually in the same chambers as the judge; that's much easier, and the law clerks are lawyers. 8/

And sure enough, I haven't found any minute orders entered by "z" in DDC dockets, only by "lc." Now, that bring us to some bizarre things in the Boasberg docket. First, Boasberg issued an order before the case was assigned to him. 9/

Second, the minute order was entered by a docketing clerk not a law clerk. How did the docketing clerk know what the order should say? He or she, "zjd," must have spoken with the judge or a clerk. After that minute order is entered, the case is assigned to Boasberg by zjd. 10/

Now we have another minute order by a law clerk "lcjeb1." And from there on out, the minute orders are all entered by law clerks. This raises a couple of questions: (1) How did Boasberg issue an order before the case was assigned to him? 11/

(2) Why didn't a law clerk enter the order? (3) How did Boasberg know the case existed before he and his clerks got an electronic notice of case assignment? 12/

Judges become aware of cases when they (or more likely their clerks) get what's called a NEF ("Notice of Electronic Filing") in the chambers' email inbox, which only happens after the case is assigned to that chambers. 13/

It's possible that because this complaint came with a TRO, the docketing clerk would have called a judge as a heads-up: "hey, emergency motion incoming for you." But why would the docketing clerk call Boasberg and not Contreras, given Boasberg's emergency assignments? 14/

A few possible explanations:

1) Contreras may have been called first but told the clerk that he couldn't do it, in which case Boasberg took it on himself.

2) The clerk may have forgotten about the order and went straight to Boasberg as chief judge (unlikely). 15/

3) Boasberg may have called the clerk before it could be assigned to Contreras. But if the docketing clerk didn't tell Boasberg about the case, how did he know about it?

4) This is just a quirk of DDC's practices, different than where I clerked, so I'm missing something. 16/

It's entirely possible that this is explicable as some unique but unremarkable DDC practice rather than Boasberg undermining random case assignment. Politics doesn't really work as an explanation because both Boasberg and Contreras are Obama appointees. 17/

TLDR; weird things happened on the docket, but they don't tell us for sure what happened.
/End.