JUD-005 — Judicial Noncompliance Notice and Public Accountability Act¶

This is the independent JUD-005 alternative. It operates without JUD-001, DOJ-007, or JUD-011.

A BILL¶

To require prompt congressional notice and a public status record when a Federal court finds material or willful noncompliance by the United States or a Federal executive entity or officer with an operative judicial order, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.¶

This Act may be cited as the “Judicial Noncompliance Notice and Public Accountability Act.”

SEC. 2. PURPOSES.¶

The purposes of this Act are to—

(1) ensure that a qualifying judicial finding of executive noncompliance is transmitted automatically and simultaneously to politically accountable oversight recipients;

(2) provide the public an accurate, searchable record of the finding and its later judicial or compliance status;

(3) protect information that lawfully may not be made public; and

(4) preserve judicial independence and congressional discretion by creating no new adjudication, sanction, investigation, or duty for Congress to act.

SEC. 3. NOTICE OF QUALIFYING EXECUTIVE-NONCOMPLIANCE FINDINGS.¶

(a) In general.¶

Chapter 41 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

“§ 614. Notice of qualifying executive-noncompliance findings¶

“(a) Definitions.¶

“In this section:

“(1) Covered executive party.—The term ‘covered executive party’ means—

“(A) the United States;

“(B) the President or Vice President, when acting or sued in an official capacity;

“(C) an executive agency as defined in section 105 of title 5, a military department as defined in section 102 of title 5, the United States Postal Service, the Postal Regulatory Commission, the Executive Office of the President, or any other establishment in the executive branch; or

“(D) an officer or employee of an entity described in subparagraph (C), when acting or sued in an official capacity.

“(2) Qualifying finding.—The term ‘qualifying finding’ means an express written finding by a court of the United States, entered after notice and an opportunity to be heard, that—

“(A) a covered executive party materially or willfully failed to comply with a lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of that court or another court of the United States;

“(B) the writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command was operative with respect to that party when the conduct occurred; and

“(C) the finding is based on conduct occurring on or after the effective date of this section.

“(3) Status event.—The term ‘status event’ means an express written order, judgment, or docket entry by a court of the United States that—

“(A) stays, administratively stays, reverses, vacates, modifies, clarifies, or supersedes a qualifying finding or the underlying command; or

“(B) records satisfaction, purge, or compliance with the underlying command.

“(b) Transmission by clerk.¶

“Not later than 2 business days after entry of a qualifying finding, the clerk of the court shall transmit the finding, the underlying command, and the docket information necessary to identify the proceeding to—

“(1) the Speaker, majority leader, and minority leader of the House of Representatives;

“(2) the majority leader and minority leader of the Senate;

“(3) the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary of each House;

“(4) the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Secretary of the Senate, for distribution, in accordance with the rules and procedures of the respective House, to the chair and ranking minority member of each committee with jurisdiction over the covered executive party, program, appropriation, or subject matter;

“(5) the Attorney General, the head of the covered executive party, and the inspector general with jurisdiction, if any; and

“(6) the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

“(c) Status updates.¶

“Not later than 2 business days after a status event is entered on the docket of the proceeding, or notice of the status event is transmitted to that docket by another court, the clerk shall transmit notice of that event to each recipient identified in subsection (b).

“(d) Public and protected versions.¶

“(1) If the qualifying finding and underlying command are publicly available, the clerk shall transmit the public versions and their permanent public docket links.

“(2) If any material is sealed, classified, subject to grand-jury secrecy, protected by statute or rule, or otherwise lawfully withheld from public disclosure, the clerk shall—

“(A) transmit protected material only through a lawful secure procedure and only to recipients legally authorized to receive it; and

“(B) transmit and provide to the Director the public version entered by the court or, if no public version may lawfully be entered, a public docket statement identifying that a qualifying finding occurred and describing its status without disclosing protected information.

“(3) Nothing in this section authorizes the clerk, the Director, or a recipient to alter a judicial record or disclose information otherwise protected from disclosure.

“(e) No adjudicative or political effect.¶

“Transmission under this section—

“(1) is ministerial and does not delay entry, enforcement, appeal, review, or compliance;

“(2) does not create or imply contempt, criminal liability, probable cause, corrupt intent, impeachability, or entitlement to any investigation or remedy beyond that established by otherwise applicable law;

“(3) does not require either House, a committee, a Member of Congress, the Department of Justice, an inspector general, or any other recipient to take action; and

“(4) does not affect any right to seek a stay, appeal, mandamus, clarification, modification, rehearing, or other review.”.

(b) Table of sections.¶

The table of sections for chapter 41 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

“614. Notice of qualifying executive-noncompliance findings.”.

SEC. 4. PUBLIC EXECUTIVE-NONCOMPLIANCE REGISTER.¶

Section 604(a) of title 28, United States Code, is amended—

(1) in paragraph (25), by striking the period and inserting “; and”; and

(2) by adding at the end the following:

“(26) establish and maintain a free, searchable, downloadable, and durable online register of the public materials transmitted under section 614, which shall—

“(A) identify the court, case name, docket number, date, covered executive party, and public finding;

“(B) link to the public finding, underlying command, and available docket information;

“(C) display each later status event promptly and with prominence reasonably equal to the original finding;

“(D) distinguish findings that remain operative from findings or commands that have been stayed, reversed, vacated, modified, superseded, satisfied, purged, or followed by an express determination of compliance;

“(E) publish only the public version or docket statement supplied by the clerk and disclose no information protected under section 614(d); and

“(F) permit searching, sorting, and bulk download by court, date, covered executive party, and status.”.

SEC. 5. IMPLEMENTATION.¶

(a) Procedures.¶

Not later than 180 days after enactment, the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, after consultation with court clerks, shall establish uniform ministerial procedures, secure-transmission standards, register data fields, correction procedures, and status-update practices necessary to carry out this Act.

(b) Accuracy and correction.¶

The procedures shall permit the issuing court to correct inaccurate identifying or status information without altering the substance of a judicial record. The register shall preserve an auditable history of material corrections.

(c) No new judicial determination.¶

Neither the Director nor a clerk may determine independently that noncompliance occurred or characterize conduct beyond the issuing court's written finding.

SEC. 6. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.¶

There are authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary to the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts for fiscal year 2027 and each fiscal year thereafter to carry out this Act.

SEC. 7. EFFECTIVE DATE; APPLICATION.¶

This Act and the amendments made by this Act take effect 180 days after enactment and apply to qualifying findings based on conduct occurring on or after that date, including conduct in a proceeding commenced before that date.

SEC. 8. RULES OF CONSTRUCTION.¶

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to—

(1) enlarge or diminish the contempt authority of a court;

(2) create a cause of action, defense, evidentiary presumption, investigative jurisdiction, criminal offense, civil penalty, or basis for impeachment;

(3) alter classification authority, grand-jury secrecy, judicial sealing authority, privilege, privacy protection, or any other lawful restriction on disclosure;

(4) authorize Congress or an executive officer to revise, delay, or suppress a judicial finding or status event; or

(5) authorize a court to compel Congress or a Member, committee, officer, or employee of Congress to exercise a legislative, oversight, or impeachment power.

SEC. 9. SEVERABILITY.¶

If any provision of this Act or an amendment made by this Act, or its application to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, the remainder and its application to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected.

Budgetary Impact Statement¶

Independent alternative. The Act creates no new court, judgeship, investigative office, grant, or entitlement. It requires clerk transmission, protected-information handling, Administrative Office procedures, and a searchable public register. Necessary appropriations are authorized without a dollar amount pending Administrative Office workload and systems estimates.

Note: Preliminary ARRP assessment only; not a CBO, OMB, agency, or legislative-counsel score.

Drafting Notes¶

The draft places the ministerial notice duty in the Administrative Office chapter of title 28 rather than the criminal-code contempt chapter. It does not alter the contempt power in 18 U.S.C. § 401.
The Administrative Office hook uses 28 U.S.C. § 604, which already assigns public-document, congressional-transmission, statistical-reporting, and public-compilation duties to the Director.
18 U.S.C. § 2519 supplies a direct functional analogue: judges report specified orders to the Administrative Office, which reports compiled information to Congress.
28 U.S.C. § 360(b) supplies a narrower analogue for public availability of specified judicial orders through a clerk's office.
The further internal review should test whether the definition of a covered executive party and the term “court of the United States” fully cover the intended institutions, whether two business days is operationally workable, and whether congressional-distribution and protected-transmission language needs legislative-counsel revision.
The Act is independent. Congress may enact it even if it rejects JUD-001, DOJ-007, and JUD-011.