“But not every judge pays close enough attention to their docket (or is liberal enough) to dismiss those causes sua sponte.”

Please don’t take this comment as representing anything more than the experience of one judge in one jurisdiction. While I sat in many jurisdictions in addition to the one where I was elected, docket management is not a responsibility of a visiting judge.

The only dismissals I ever entered sua sponte were for want of prosecution, cases the clerk pulled out for a docket flush every couple of years whether the docket needed it or not (;-).

I never ever went to my docket. My docket came to me and, if it did not, I assumed it was sleeping peacefully and I ought not to wake it up. Lawyers on either side needing to be heard would normally go to the clerk and get on the next docket call or, if they needed immediate attention, they would come to me and I would often pick up the telephone and call opposing counsel and we would all have an on the record chat that evening after the courthouse was generally closed.

A jury demand was a certain way to get to the front of the line, because it was one of my (made up) principles of docket management that a jury trial should always come up quicker than a bench trial.

I could not prevent civil cases settling with a venire waiting, but I had a bit more leverage in a criminal case. Once both sides announced a criminal case ready at docket call (the week before the jury trial), the only way we did not pick a jury the next week was if the prosecution dismissed or the defense entered an open plea or some flaming emergency arose.

This is how you get listed in the Courthouse Snack Bar Informal Law Encyclopedia under “rocket docket.”

Sorry to blather so much. I just intended to remark on “close enough attention to their docket” but I go off easily because it’s been so long since I could discuss something as esoteric as docket management.