Federal Judge Rules Los Angeles Top Prosecutor Is Serving Unlawfully
A ruling that a sitting First Assistant U.S. Attorney lacks lawful authority to supervise cases introduces procedural uncertainty into active federal prosecutions in one of the country's largest...
A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that Bill Essayli, the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, is unlawfully serving as the district's top prosecutor and is disqualified from participating in or supervising federal cases, according to a court order published by The Hill.
U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright authored the order, finding that Essayli is serving as a "de facto" United States Attorney without lawful authority to hold that designation. Seabright was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush, a Republican.
Essayli is a former Republican member of the California State Assembly. He was designated First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, which covers Los Angeles and surrounding counties and is among the most active federal judicial districts in the country by case volume.
The ruling turns on the legal mechanism by which Essayli was placed in the role. Under 28 U.S.C. Section 546, when a U.S. Attorney position is vacant, the Attorney General may appoint an interim U.S. Attorney for up to 120 days, after which the district court judges of that district may appoint an interim U.S. Attorney if the position remains unfilled. The specific basis on which Judge Seabright found Essayli's designation unlawful was not fully detailed in the excerpts available from the published order; the full text of the court order would specify which statutory or constitutional requirement was not met.
The practical consequence of the ruling is immediate: Essayli is barred from participating in or supervising any cases in the Central District of California. The district handles thousands of active federal criminal and civil matters at any given time, including cases involving public corruption, immigration enforcement, financial fraud, and national security. Which specific cases are affected and how the district will manage supervisory responsibilities in the short term is not yet established in the public record.
The U.S. Department of Justice had not issued a public statement on the ruling as of the time of publication. It is unknown whether the department intends to appeal the order, seek an emergency stay, or move to place a different official in the supervisory role. A notice of appeal or an emergency motion filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals would be the next document to establish the government's response.
The Central District of California does not currently have a Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney. Senate confirmation is the standard process for permanently filling a U.S. Attorney position under 28 U.S.C. Section 541. Whether a nomination has been submitted to the Senate for this seat, and the status of any such nomination, would be reflected in Senate Judiciary Committee records, which are publicly accessible.
Rulings challenging the authority of federal prosecutors to act in a given capacity are not common, but they do occur. Courts have previously examined the scope of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 and specific U.S. Attorney appointment statutes when the authority of an official to serve in an acting or interim capacity is contested. The Supreme Court addressed related questions about acting officer authority in cases including NLRB v. SW General, Inc. (2017), where the court interpreted limits on who may serve in acting roles under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
The Central District of California prosecutes a substantial volume of cases annually. According to the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, which publishes district-level statistical reports, the Central District is among the districts with the highest number of matters received each fiscal year. Defendants with pending cases in the district have a potential basis to raise challenges to prosecutorial authority depending on the scope of the ruling, though what courts would find persuasive on that question would depend on the specific facts of each case.
What remains unknown is the full text and reasoning of Judge Seabright's order, the date on which Essayli assumed his current designation, whether any emergency relief has been sought by the Justice Department, and the identity of which official, if any, will assume supervisory authority in the interim. The court docket for the case in which the order was issued, accessible through the federal PACER system, would contain those documents.