Howard

This is an interlocutory appeal by criminal defendants challenging a requirement that pretrial detainees making their first appearance before a magistrate judge wear leg shackles. The district-wide shackling policy was implemented by the United States Marshals Service for the Central District of California after consultation with the magistrate judges. In each of these seventeen cases, a magistrate judge denied the Federal Public Defender’s motion for the defendant to appear without shackles at the initial appearance. The district court reviewed these adverse magistrate judges’ rulings in a consolidated appeal. The district court, citing safety concerns, affirmed the magistrate judges’ shackling decisions. The record contains evidence that the policy was adopted after consultation between magistrate judges and the United States Marshals Service, and that the policy was implemented to address the security concerns associated with multi-defendant proceedings in an unsecured, large courtroom, in a district in which the security personnel must cover several courthouses.

Before reaching the merits of the case, we must deal with appellate jurisdictional obstacles raised by the…