Jonathan Goodman investiture today at 2pm (UPDATED)

Congrats again to Magistrate Judge Goodman. See you all there.

Update -- it was a great ceremony.

Judge McAliley did the invocation (which was beautiful); Chief Judge Moreno then opened (lots of good jokes and stories -- including that Judge Marcus forgot his robes and had to wear Judge Moreno's Notre Dame robes); Frank Agnones presented the Bible; James Miller, Jeffrey Mandler, Stanley Wakshlag, and William Xanttopoulos spoke. Then Judge Goodman gave a response -- and he mentioned the blog. Very cool. Thanks for the mention Judge Goodman.

It's official --

-- Jonathan Goodman is now a magistrate judge. The background check is over and JG is good to go. Congrats!

But, we're still waiting for the White House to nominate Kathy Williams. What is taking so long? It's just ridiculous. Obama has really failed so far with the federal judiciary. Here's the latest article by msnbc.com:

Democrats control the White House and have the largest congressional majorities enjoyed by a chief executive in decades. But President Barack Obama isn't off to a brisk pace when it comes to putting his imprint on the third branch of government — the federal courts — and some of his allies are disappointed, particularly with the prospect of a slimmed-down Senate majority after the midterm elections.

At the highest level, the Supreme Court, Obama is already having a major impact. His first nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, was confirmed to the high court last year and his second, Elena Kagan, seems well on her way to confirmation. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, did not get his second (and final) justice until 2006, six years into his presidency.

But the vast majority of federal cases never reach the high court; they are decided by appeals court judges, making appointments to that level crucial to determining a president's judicial legacy.

The Senate has confirmed nine of Obama’s 21 appeals court nominees. That compares with eight out of 30 appeals court nominees confirmed for Bush at the same point in his first term as president.

But unlike Bush, Obama was elected with a majority of the popular vote and works with a Senate in which his party has 59 senators — at least for now.

“You’d expect President Obama, elected with a comfortable margin and with the number of Democratic senators there now are, to have had a lot more judges confirmed by now,” said Russell Wheeler, former deputy director of the Federal Judicial Center, the research agency for the federal courts. Wheeler is a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Eleven prominent liberal law professors complained to Obama in an open letter in February that “your Administration must act with far more energy and dispatch in the vitally important task of nominating and confirming federal judges.”

I demand a retraction!

Today's DBR (John Pacenti) covers the Jonathan Goodman imminent appointment as magistrate judge (filling Judge Garber's seat). We previously broke the story here. From the article: "U.S. District Chief Judge Federico Moreno wouldn't confirm blog reports last week that judges in the district have picked the Miami lawyer."

The article goes on to discuss how Kathy Williams and Willy Ferrer are still waiting for their appointments (Kathy to the bench and Willy to U.S. Attorney). Ferrer, at least, has been nominated (and will likely be confirmed this week or next). Kathy's file is apparently on the President's desk. I'm not sure what Obama is waiting for. It's really outrageous.

Pacenti says that Michael Caruso is "the odd-on favorite" to take over the Federal Defender's job when Kathy finally gets nominated: "David O. Markus, a former federal prosecutor, said Caruso is the natural choice. ... Markus, who runs the Southern District of Florida blog, ..."

Well, at least the blog got mentioned...