This Week in Judicial Nominations

This week, the Senate incrementally moved forward with its responsibility of confirming appointees to the federal bench in the midst of a judicial vacancy crisis that has left 1 in 10 seats empty. Three District Court nominees had their Senate Judiciary hearings, three were reported out of committee to await their confirmation votes on the Senate floor, and two were confirmed as part of the deal on confirmation votes struck earlier this month between Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

On Wednesday, the Senate voted to confirm United States District Court nominees Miranda Du to serve the District of Nevada by a vote of 59-39 and Susie Morgan to serve the Eastern District of Louisiana by a vote of 96-1.  It took 147 days for Du, and 140 days for Morgan, to receive their confirmation votes after being reported out of the Judiciary Committee.  Two hundred and forty days passed from the date of Du’s nomination to her confirmation to fill an emergency judicial vacancy; the time was even longer for Morgan, who was in the Senate process for 296 days.

Earlier that day, hearings were held for District Court nominees Michael Shea, Gonzalo Curiel, and Robert Shelby nominated to the District of Connecticut, the Southern District of California, and the District of Utah, respectively.  The hearing was chaired by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT); Ranking Member Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) were also in attendance.  President Obama appointed Curiel and Shelby on November 10 and November 30 last year, respectively; Shea was appointed on February 2 of this year.  The hearing was non-controversial.  Now, they await consideration by the Committee and a vote to report them to the Senate floor, where the waiting process for a confirmation vote will begin.  While Shea, who was nominated on February 2 of this year, had to wait 56 days from nomination to the time of his hearing, both Curiel and Shelby had to wait twice as long to take the next step forward in the confirmation process.  Curiel, nominated on November 10, 2011, waited 140 days for his hearing.  Shelby, nominated on November 30, waited 120 days.

The Judiciary Committee reported three nominees – Richard Taranto, Robin Rosenbaum, and Gershwin Drain – to the Senate floor on Thursday.  They join 15 other judicial nominees who are awaiting confirmation by the Senate before they can assume their seats and being to serve people by dispensing justice in our nation’s federal court system.  As the Senate is leaving town for a two-week recess, no further action will take place to confirm judges until April 16, when a vote on the nomination of Stephanie Dawn Thacker to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to take place.

By the Numbers
3 District Court nominees had hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee

3 nominees reported out of Committee to the Senate floor: 1 Circuit Court nominee, 2 District Court nominees
2 District Court nominees confirmed

The week comes to a close with:

97 total judicial vacancies, including 33 judicial emergency vacancies
80 current vacancies; 17 future vacancies
17 circuit court vacancies; 80 district court vacancies
34 pending nominees; 63 vacancies without nominees
16 nominees pending in committee; 18 pending in the Senate

For the most comprehensive, up-to-date information on judicial nominations, visit the Judicial Selection Project website.

Obama Nominates Four to Fill Judicial Vacancies

Thursday evening, President Obama sent four new names to the Senate to fill judicial vacancies.

He nominated Jill A. Pryor to a seat on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. A graduate of the College of William and Mary and of Yale Law School, and a former clerk for 11th Circuit Judge J.L. Edmondson, Pryor is currently a partner at the law firm of Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, LLP, in Atlanta, Georgia. If confirmed, she will be the fourth woman to serve on the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The seat to which Pryor has been nominated has been vacant since August 2010 and has been declared a “judicial emergency” by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Nominated to United States District Court seats were Judge Elissa Cadish to the District of Nevada, Judge Paul William Grimm to the District of Maryland, and Judge Mark E. Walker to the Northern District of Florida.

Judge Cadish, who currently serves as a district court judge on the 8th Judicial District Court of Nevada, is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and of the University of Virginia School of Law. Following law school, she clerked for Judge Philip Pro of the District of Nevada; it is his seat, also an emergency vacancy, that she will fill if confirmed.

Judge Grimm, who has been nominated to fill a future vacancy that will open up when incumbent judge Benson Legg takes senior status in June, is a United States Magistrate Judge for the District of Maryland and, since 2006, has served as the Chief United States Magistrate Judge. A former member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps with the United States Army, Grimm received his B.A. from the University of California at Davis and his J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law.

Judge Walker is currently a Florida Circuit Judge in Tallahassee. In addition to a decade in private practice, he served as an Assistant Public Defender for Florida’s Second Judicial Circuit from 1997-1999 and clerked for a Florida state court judge, a United States District Court Judge in the Northern District of Florida, and a judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.  He received both his B.A. and his J.D. from the University of Florida.

For the most up-to-date and comprehensive information on judicial nominations, see the Alliance for Justice’s Judicial Selection Project webpage.

Judiciary Committee Reports Five Judicial Nominees to the Floor

This morning the Senate Judiciary Committee reported five judicial nominees to the Senate floor. Four nominees were reported on a unanimous voice vote: Stephanie Dawn Thacker, Michael Walker Fitzgerald, Ronnie Abrams, and Rudolph Contreras, nominees to the Fourth Circuit, the Central District of California, the Southern District of New York, and the District of Columbia, respectively.

Miranda Du, nominee to the District of Nevada, was reported out on a 10-8 party-line vote.

Fitzgerald and Du have been appointed to vacant seats that have been designated as judicial emergencies by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

The committee also held over until its next meeting a vote on Susie Morgan, nominee to the Eastern District of Louisiana.

For the most up-to-date and comprehensive information on judicial nominations, see the Alliance for Justice’s Judicial Selection Project webpage.

Hearings on Five Nominees, Two to Fill Judicial Emergencies

The Senate Judiciary Committee today held hearings on the nominations of Stephanie Dawn Thacker to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and of Michael Walter Fitzgerald, Ronnie Abrams, Rudolph Contreras, and Miranda Du to serve as United States District Judges in the Central District of California, the Southern District of New York, the District of Columbia, and the District of Nevada, respectively.

If confirmed, Fitzgerald and Du will both be filling vacancies that have been deemed “judicial emergencies” by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) presided over the hearings; also in attendance were committee members Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Senator Chris Coons (D-MD).

With 108 vacancies in our federal courts, 32 of them judicial emergencies, the Senate should move swiftly to put these well-qualified nominees on the federal bench.

For the most up-to-date and comprehensive information on judicial nominations, download the Alliance for Justice’s Judicial Selection Snapshot and The State of the Judiciary May–August 2011: Judicial Nominations in the 112th Congress.