Tuesday, January 10, 2023

The waiting is the hardest part

 By John R. Byrne

There are currently three openings on our district court bench and still no nominations from the White House. The open seats are from when Judges Moreno, Ungaro, and Cooke took senior status. With new US Attorney Markenzy Lapointe in place, you have to think that the focus now turns to filling those spots. 

Yesterday, CNN published an article about the Biden White House struggling to get judges confirmed in the South, the issue being framed as needing sign off from two Republican senators in most of the states. Senator Rick Scott's communications director, McKinley Lewis, said the senator welcomed “an open, good faith dialogue with the White House to ensure any nominees to serve on Florida’s federal courts will respect the limited role of the judiciary and will not legislate from the bench.”

The names mentioned for the seats so far include Federal Defender Michael Caruso, Kozyak Tropin partner Detra Shaw-Wilder and former federal prosecutor David Leibowitz.


4 comments:

Michael Caruso said...

Thanks, but there are other names, too: Ayana Harris, Shaniek Maynard, Miguel de la O, and Samantha Feuer.

Anonymous said...

Not shocking that Rick Scott would wish the President would pick judges to promote his reactionary agenda. But shouldn't the Senate be a little past caring what Republicans think about who should sit on the federal bench? Otherwise our country is announcing it has not yet begun to fight while the Republicans are noting that an hour has passed and they don't see their helicopter or ten pizzas.

Anonymous said...

And Alex Hanna

Anonymous said...

As long as these nominees will see that the interest of justice means more than just the interests of the Department of Justice.