Judicial Administration, 12 Amer. U. L. Rev. 150, 160 (1963). The propriety of such action has apparently never before been seriously challenged.

Judge Chandler argues, however, that § 332 limits the Council's authority in making this type of order to situations in which the order is necessitated by the existence of an extraordinary backlog of cases, and that the February 4 Order was prompted, not by such a backlog, but by the Council's desire to punish Judge Chandler for misbehavior. There seem to be two strands to this argument. First, there are suggestions in petitioner's briefs and in those of amicus curiae Shipley that the Council's actions have been taken not for the reasons stated in the various orders and minutes of the Council but for reasons of personal animosity. There is nothing in the record, which consists of Judge Chandler's petition and the orders and minutes of the Council, to substantiate this charge, and I for one am quite unwilling to attribute such motives to the Council. Second, Judge Chandler seems to assert that the February 4 Order is sustainable only if supported by a showing that his docket bore a numerically heavier load of pending cases than did those of his colleagues on the District Court, and that this justification is lacking here." I believe

17 Although neither the December 13 Order nor the February 4 Order recited figures concerning the status of the docket in the District Court, the former order did state that it was predicated on a series of meetings over a four-year period in which the Council "has discussed the business of the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma and has done so with particular regard to the effect thereon of the attitude and conduct of Judge Chandler who, as the Chief Judge of that district, is primarily responsible for the administration of such business."

Approximately a year after the issuance of the February 4 Order, in the course of determining "whether the existing order was still suitable or whether the conditions had changed to an extent sufficient to dictate a change in the order," the Council examined

this argument reflects an overly restrictive view of the Judicial Council's role.

The legislative history of § 332 contains positive refutation of petitioner's argument that the only factor a Council might appropriately consider in making an order such as that of February 4 is the statistical weight of the workloads of the various district judges. It is true, as the legislative history in Part II above confirms, that abatement of delays in disposition of cases was a principal purpose for creation of the Councils; but the Councils were deliberately given broad responsibilities to meet other problems as they arose. Chief Justice Groner contemplated that the Councils would cope not only with delays but also with "any other matter which is the subject of criticism, or properly could be made the subject of criticism, for which [a district judge] may be responsible." Hearings on S. 188, supra, at 11. The Senate committee included this part

statistics furnished by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, showing that on February 1, 1966, 138 cases had been pending before Judge Chandler, as contrasted to 92, 91, and 99 cases respectively pending before the other active district judges. Further statistics showed that 50 cases were still pending before Judge Chandler on January 31, 1967. On the basis of these figures the Council determined that no action was then appropriate regarding the assignment of cases in the District Court.

On July 12, 1967, the Council again reviewed the condition of the District Court docket and, on discovering that only 12 cases were pending before Judge Chandler, determined that a revision should be made of the disposition of business mandated by the February 4 Order. It requested notification from the district judges of a new order of business suitable to them. However, as appears from the Court's opinion, the district judges advised the Council "that the current order for the division of business in this district is agreeable under the circumstances." On receiving this message the Council determined to leave the February 4 Order in effect. Subsequent statistics, submitted to the Council by the Administrative Office, showed that Judge Chandler had six cases pending on June 30, 1969.

of the testimony in its report recommending passage of the bill. S. Rep. No. 426, supra, at 3. The same witness later stated that the Council's responsibilities would embrace correction of "whatever is wrong in the administration of justice, from whatever sources it may arise." as a means of promoting "the strengthening of confidence on the part of the people." Id., at 12-14.18

The broad mandate of the Councils was further stressed by the Judicial Conference in its 1961 report. The Conference considered it to be "patent" from the legislative history that § 332

"imposed upon a judicial council the responsibility of seeing that the work and function of the courts in its circuit were expeditiously and effectively performed; and that this responsibility of observation, supervision, and correction went to the whole of a court's functioning, in both personal and institutional aspect." H. R. Doc. No. 201, supra, at 6. From a study of the applications of the statute by the various Councils, the Conference concluded that

"most of the councils appear, from the things with which they have dealt in these situations, to have recognized that their responsibilities and power extend, not merely to dealing with the questions of the handling and dispatching of a trial court's business in its technical sense, but also to dealing with the business of the judiciary in its broader or institutional sense, such as the preventing of any stigma. disrepute, or other element of loss of public confidence occurring as to the Federal courts or to the administration of justice by them, from any nature of action by an individual judge or a person attached to the courts." Id., at 7.

18 See also Hearings on H. R. 5999, supra, at 16 (statement of Chief Justice Groner); id., at 22 (statement of Judge Parker).

The Conference specifically approved this construction in spelling out its conclusions. Id., at 8-9.

It is not necessary to define all of the limits on the powers of the Councils under § 332 in order to determine that the February 4 Order was a proper exercise of those powers. The December 13 Order noted that the Council was familiar with Judge Chandler's conduct of official business from four years of scrutiny, and it further recited that

"[d]uring that period Judge Chandler has been a party defendant in both civil and criminal litigation. One civil case is still pending. Two proceedings have been brought in the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to disqualify him from handling specific litigation. In one instance he was ordered to proceed no further and the other is still pending."

I believe that these circumstances, taken as a whole. established a prima facie basis for the Council's conclusion that some action was appropriate to alleviate what the Council members perceived as a threat to public confidence in the administration of justice.

C

Passing over the now revoked action taken on December 13, I consider the February 4 Order, restricting Judge Chandler for the time being to the cases then pending before him, to be a permissible interim step toward exploration and solution of the problem presented. The Council must be presumed to have known of the substantial number of cases then available to Judge Chandler, see n. 17, supra, and it could reasonably conclude that a careful way to proceed would be to observe the manner in which Judge Chandler handled those cases before determining what more permanent steps

should be taken with respect to the administration of the business of the District Court.

When the Council learned that Judge Chandler had disposed of the bulk of his cases, it invited him and the other district judges to propose a new distribution of business; the district judges together, or Judge Chandler alone exercising his right under § 137 to certify a disagreement to the Council, are free to make such a proposal at any time. Judge Chandler's claim that his failure to seek a new allocation is the result of unlawful "duress" seems insubstantial in light of the initial validity of the February 4 Order. Even if the December 13 Order did impose a form of duress in January 1966, when the district judges settled upon the present division of cases, that order had been revoked, and there could hardly be said to have been duress, when the district judges declined the Council's July 1967 invitation to propose a new order. Serious questions would be presented if, after exhausting much of his pending business, Judge Chandler had sought additional business and the Council had declined without advancing substantial additional justification for the refusal. However, because of Judge Chandler's inaction, that situation is not presented on this record.

In view of my conclusion that the February 4 Order was a valid exercise of the Council's power under § 332, I need not consider the Council's alternative justification of the order under § 137, or petitioner's arguments concerning the inapplicability of that provision.

D

Finally, the procedures followed by the Council in promulgating its February 4 Order do not appear to have been offensive to Congress' conception of the manner in which the Councils would act, nor inconsistent with the basic demands of due process of law. It seems to have