SEC ‘Steering’ Cases To Judges It Appoints

It turns out the Immigration Courts are not the only justice system where prosecutors get to argue in front of judges hired by their side of the justice equation. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) is “… increasingly steering cases to hearing in front of the agency’s appointed administrative judges. Perhaps not surprisingly, the trend has resulted in a “winning streak” for the federal agency.
The WSJ says that “… thanks in part to enhanced powers granted in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill, the SEC lately has been using the administrative judges for complicated cases, including several involving insider trading.” The insider trading cases were usually taken to federal court, but resulted in some high-profile losses. As with the immigration courts, the civil cases can be handled in ways that criminal cases cannot.
“It’s fair to say it’s the new normal,” says one SEC official in the Journal’s report. Not surprisingly, some critics are arguing that actual courts, not admin courts, should handle such lawsuits.