Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

 

Page 1

 

Tucker Confirmed as Federal Judge for Central District

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

The U.S. Senate has confirmed President Obama’s nomination of Orange Superior Court Judge Josephine S. Tucker to serve as a district judge on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Tucker, 48, was confirmed Monday on a voice vote after the Senate voted 89-0 to confirm the nominations of Mark A. Goldsmith to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan and Marc T. Treadwell to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

The Ninth Circuit Executive’s Office said Tucker is expected to receive her commission shortly. She will fill a judgeship vacant since Jan. 5, 2009, when U.S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler took senior status.

An Orange Superior Court representative told the MetNews that Tucker had no comment on her confirmation.

Then-Gov. Gray Davis in 2002 appointed Tucker to the Superior Court, where she has presided over criminal, family and civil law matters. She served on temporary assignment with the California Court of Appeal for this district’s Div. One last year.

Prior Experience

Prior to joining the bench, Tucker was a partner and co-chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Labor and Employment Law Department in Irvine from 1995 to 2002, and was an associate from 1987 to 1994 in the firm’s Irvine and San Francisco offices. A graduate of William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., and Harvard Law School, she was admitted to the State Bar in 1988 and clerked for Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge John R. Gibson.

Tucker is a member of the California Judges Association and the Warren J. Ferguson Inn of Court. She was an active member of the Center for Judicial Education and Research Court Security Education Committee, an advisory committee to the Judicial Council of California.

She was also named Orange County Employment Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2001 by the Orange County Trial Lawyers Association.

The president nominated Tucker, who was unanimously rated “Well Qualified” by the American Bar Association’s evaluation committee, on Feb. 4, along with Goldsmith, Treadwell and Elizabeth Foote, whose nomination to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana was confirmed last week.

Tucker’s confirmation leaves the U.S. District Court for the Central District, which is authorized 27 permanent judgeships and 1 temporary judgeship, with two vacancies. Judge Florence-Marie Cooper died Jan. 15 and Judge Stephen G. Larson resigned Nov. 2 of last year to join the law firm of Girardi | Keese.

Other Nominees

Goldsmith, a circuit court judge in Oakland County, Mich., has been a state court trial judge since March 2004, presiding over criminal and civil matters. A former litigator at Honigman Miller Schwartz & Cohn in Detroit and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York, he attended the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School.

Goldsmith is a former president of the Eastern District of Michigan chapter of the Federal Bar Association and a former adjunct instructor at Wayne State Law School. He helped establish the Circle of Friends program, which teaches language and acculturation skills to new immigrants, in Oakland County.

He also established JUST US, a continuing judicial education program for the county’s Circuit Court and Probate Court bench.

Treadwell is a shareholder and partner with Adams, Jordan and Treadwell, P.C., in Macon, Ga., where he has specialized in personal injury and wrongful death actions since 2000. Before that, he was an attorney with Chambless Higdon and Carson, LLP, and Kilpatrick and Cody, representing clients in civil litigation.

A graduate of college at Valdosta State University and law school at Mercer University, both in Georgia, Treadwell is an active member and current president of the William Augustus Bootle Inn of Court and an adjunct professor at Mercer’s Walter F. George School of Law.

Federal district court judges, appointed under Article III of the Constitution, are nominated by the president, confirmed by the Senate and serve lifetime appointments upon good behavior. Their current annual salary is $174,000.

 

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