Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Edmund F. Brennan


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete. Randykitty (talk) 11:03, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Edmund F. Brennan

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This article about a U.S. judge was speedily deleted and restored after discussion at Deletion review/Log/2014 September 19. Because some in that discussion voiced concerns about notability, I'm submitting the artice to AfD to decide this. I myself am neutral.  Sandstein  12:44, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Weak keep: I'm not intimately familiar with the intricacies of the U.S. federal court system and there was some debate about whether or not a federal magistrate judge meets the criteria of WP:NPOL. In simplest terms, it is a judge position in the federal court system, therefore NPOL is met. Looking into it further, we have a Category:United States magistrate judges, indicating to me that it's a position which we consider notable. However, it doesn't appear to me that Brennan is notable beyond this, so this is the weakest of weak !votes. Keep in mind also that this wouldn't have come to AfD at all if not for a certain admin's gross misunderstanding of WP:CSD rationalizing nuking an article for containing the slightest of BLP vios. Ivanvector (talk) 16:06, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 18:33, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 18:33, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 18:34, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 18:35, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * WP:NPOL doesn't confer an automatic presumption of notability on all judges — in fact, it has nothing to do with judges at all, and instead the relevant criteria by which a judge has to be measured is WP:JUDGE. According to our article on magistrate judges, however, it's an administrative "junior judge" role which presides over the lower functions of the district court (e.g. bail hearings, search warrants, misdemeanor cases, etc.), so that the "senior" district court judges can concentrate on the more important and notable functions of the system — so a magistrate judge would not automatically meet WP:JUDGE just for holding a magistrate judgeship, but instead would qualify for a Wikipedia article only if you could write it substantively enough, and source it reliably enough, to get him over WP:GNG. But with only one non-primary source here, and with the article being little more than a prosified reiteration of his résumé, that test has not been met. I do agree that it didn't qualify for speedy under the criterion that was cited, when the offending text could simply have been removed from the article, but as written it is still a delete. No prejudice against recreation in the future if (a) the quality of sourcing can be improved, and/or (b) he gets promoted to a more senior role that would actually pass WP:JUDGE. Bearcat (talk) 19:16, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I disagree. POLITICIAN expressly says that it applies to judges. JUDGE, which has yet to be accepted as a guideline, expressly says that it does not affect the notability of judges who are notable under POLITICIAN. Either way, if a judge satisfies POLITICIAN, he is notable. James500 (talk) 13:21, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete. James500 is right to say that NPOL applies to judges. But magistrate judges really aren't judges. They are very low on the judicial food chain and, it seems, do not even give final judgment in cases. They carry out administrative and interlocutory functions under the delegated authority of (actual) judges. There are over 500 in the US. They do not have life tenure, which (I understand) federal judges are constitutionally guaranteed. So applying NPOL to them would be a stretch, and a misconstruction of the guideline. As for the GNG, the closest thing to significant coverage is this, found by Cunard at the DRV. I don't think this brief article on his appointment is significant enough for the purposes of the notability of a living person.--Mkativerata (talk) 20:21, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
 * 517 magistrate judges seems to be a small number in absolute terms. By way of comparison, in England, there were, in February, a total of 22,160 justices of the peace: . James500 (talk) 22:25, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment Nominators are advised before posting a deletion discusion, "discussion guidelines are available."  This link states, C. Consider whether the article could be improved rather than deleted
 * 1) If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a candidate for AfD.
 * 2) If the article was recently created, please consider allowing the contributors more time to develop the article.
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 * 4) If the topic is not important enough to merit an article on its own, consider merging or redirecting to an existing article.  This should be done particularly if the topic name is a likely search term.
 * Unscintillating (talk) 00:34, 1 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete Fails GNG, and there is no presumption of notability for a magistrate judge. According to the only source cited in the article, which is from the Sacramento Bee, "Magistrate judges handle arraignments in criminal cases and pretrial motions in civil cases. They handle much of the heavy volume of prisoner litigation, including death penalty appeals." It's basically a paperwork job; I believe they also sometimes preside over misdemeanor cases. In a search I found no sources that could be used to improve the article. --MelanieN (talk) 01:28, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete: As this magistrate does not appear notable, and being a US magistrate judge would not seem to be an automatically notable position. See Articles for deletion/Arlene Rosario Lindsay (2012 deletion); Articles for deletion/Nandor Vadas (2nd nomination) (2010 deletion); and Articles for deletion/Patty Shwartz (deleted 2007; recreated when nominated for a higher judgeship, which she received).--Milowent • hasspoken  04:23, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

My vote is to keep it, since I'm the contributor of it anyways! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Forthe1789usconstitution (talk • contribs) 12:14, 18 June 2015 (UTC)