Note on the Neutral Assignment of Federal Appellate Judges

Neutral Assignment of Judges at the Court of Appeals (Neutral Assignment) substantially increases comprehension of the federal intermediate appellate courts. The most striking aspect of the recent article by Professor J. Robert Brown, Jr. and Ms. Allison Herren Lee is the revelation of new information which strongly suggests that the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit did not randomly assign members of the federal bench to three-judge panels which heard cases involving desegregation and that this practice facilitated substantive results which favored integration. The material's release may well provoke controversy; however, Neutral Assignment is much more than a period piece. Indeed, that article has considerable salience for contemporary appellate procedure.