Thursday, August 3, 2006
Page 3
Magistrate Judge O’Neill Nominated by President to Eastern District Judgeship
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer
President Bush yesterday nominated Magistrate Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill to become a U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of California.
O’Neill, 53, has been a magistrate judge in Fresno since 1999, and was a Fresno Superior Court judge for nine years before that. If confirmed by the Senate, he would succeed Judge Oliver Wanger, who took senior status.
A native of Oakland, he graduate from UC Berkeley, where he majored in criminology, in 1973. He worked as a police officer in San Leandro from 1973 until 1976, the same year he earned a master’s degree in public administration from Golden Gate University, and graduated from Hastings College of the Law in 1979.
After clerking for First District Court of Appeal Justice Robert Kane—now retired—he joined the Fresno firm of McCormick, Barstow, Sheppard, Wayte & Carruth, where he was made a partner in 1984. He left the firm when then-Gov. George Deukmejian named him to the Superior Court in 1990.
He also taught civil trial practice at San Joaquin College of Law in Fresno from 1986 to 1993.
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