President Donald Trump attends the 157th National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery, Monday, May 26, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).
President Donald Trump may find a welcoming audience as he sues the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for some $10 billion.
On Monday, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida took up the case stylized as Trump v. British Broadcasting Corporation, a defamation lawsuit premised on a "Panorama" documentary about the 45th and 47th president.
In typical fashion, the case was assigned to a judge by way of the Southern District's own internal randomized selection process. And that intentional process may have inured to the president's benefit.
By the spin of a wheel, U.S. District Judge Roy K. Altman, appointed by Trump during his first term, was put in charge of the case.
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When assigning federal cases to federal judges, no general process is observed throughout the country. Rather, selection is typically handled by each court at the local level — and explained via published rules or a standing order. Case assignment in the first instance, however, is almost always made to achieve a random result.
The court's internal operating procedures explain:
(a) All civil and criminal cases, including those within a weighted category, shall be assigned on a blind random basis so that the District workload is fairly and equally distributed among the active Judges irrespective of jury division; provided that, whenever necessary in the interest of justice and expediency, the Court may modify the assignments made to active or senior Judges.
(b) The Clerk of the Court shall not have any power or discretion in determining the Judge to whom any action or proceeding is assigned, the Clerk of the Court's duties being ministerial only. The method of assignment shall assure that the identity of the assigned Judge shall not be disclosed to the Clerk of the Court nor to any other person, until after filing.
(c) The assignment schedule shall be designed to prevent any litigant from choosing the Judge to whom an action or proceeding is to be assigned, and all attorneys shall conscientiously refrain from attempting to vary this Local Rule.
Another section of the above-referenced document explains that "the criminal and civil wheels were consolidated" as of January 2002.
"The civil A & B wheels are combined into a single wheel from which all new civil cases, but for capital habeas petitions, will now be assigned," the court's rules read. "The criminal categories I-II, III, IV, and V wheels are likewise consolidated into a single criminal wheel from which all new criminal cases will now be assigned."
A law review article from 2014 explains how court systems using the wheel method for randomized selection use an actual wheel.
"[A]fter a case is filed, physical and literal wooden wheels, filled with index cards upon which the names of each district judge is printed, spin around and around, until the court clerk approaches the wheel and randomly draws a card, thus selecting the judge who will preside over the just-filed case," the article reads.
Two major updates — not really changes — have been made to the "random assignment" of cases in the Southern District in recent years.
In a May 2024 order, the court established a multi-step system for cases "where the remedy sought has implications beyond the parties and the local community" can be quickly reassigned on the motion of a party — at the first-assigned judge's discretion.
In March of this year, the court issued an order providing that magistrate judges will be assigned to oversee all non-prisoner cases filed by pro se litigants — people who are representing themselves.
While the upshot of the second rule update is clear, the earlier update may yet have some salience should the BBC decide to try its luck and move to have Altman replaced by another judge.
Still, the British state media outlet would by no means have a sure thing should it try to obtain a non-Trump-appointed judge in the high-profile defamation battle; six of the 18 active judges in the Southern District were appointed by the current president.
