Federal Judge Alan Albright Resigns After Trump Appointment, Citing Personal Fulfillment

Federal Judge Alan Albright, appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2018, has announced his sudden resignation, effective August 2024. The Texas-based judge’s abrupt departure follows reports of his growing dissatisfaction with the role.

According to Bloomberg Law, Albright had shown clear signs of unease in the weeks leading up to his decision. His resignation comes as a surprise, given his significant influence and caseload within the federal judiciary.

Albright’s Legacy: A Massive Backlog of Unresolved Cases

Albright leaves behind one of the most substantial backlogs of litigation in the federal court system. As of September 2023, his docket accounted for:

• 70% of the 129 civil cases pending in the Western District of Texas for three years or longer;
• 63% of the 706 civil motions awaiting decisions for six months or longer;
• 446 undecided motions, nearly double the number of any other judge in the Fifth Circuit.

His colleagues in Austin, Judge Robert Pitman and Judge David Ezra, had no such backlog, highlighting the extraordinary volume of unresolved cases under Albright’s purview.

Unfinished Work to Burden Successor

Despite his resignation, Albright’s workload is not expected to decrease by August. Instead, he is anticipated to transfer a substantial portion of his unresolved cases to his staff and his successor, creating an immediate challenge for the incoming judge.

“He has a huge docket that now the other judges are going to have, because it’s not going to go down appreciably by the end of August, no matter how hard he works.” — Lee Yeakel, retired judge from the Western District of Texas

Trump’s Judicial Appointments and Growing Concerns Over Independence

Albright’s resignation is part of a broader pattern of turnover within the judiciary. Since returning to office, Trump has appointed 271 judges across the federal court system. However, his recent actions—including the firing and replacement of over 100 immigration judges—have raised concerns about judicial independence and the politicization of the courts.

Controversial Immigration Judge Appointments

The Justice Department has launched an aggressive recruitment drive to fill immigration judge vacancies, hiring approximately 140 individuals with little to no experience in immigration law. Among the controversial picks are:

• A divorce lawyer who has pledged to “fight exclusively for the rights of men” and described women as a “warm, wet hole”;
• A Minnesota attorney who supported ICE raids in Minneapolis, which resulted in the deaths of two U.S. citizens;
• A judge who denied humanitarian protection to a Serbian immigrant because he did not appear “overtly gay.”

These appointments have sparked criticism and raised questions about the impartiality and qualifications of Trump’s judicial selections.