Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Page 3
Senate Confirms Magistrate Judge Fernando Olguin to District Judgeship
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The U.S. Senate yesterday confirmed U.S. Magistrate Judge Fernando M. Olguin to serve as judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
The nomination was confirmed by voice vote following brief debate.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, like Obama a Democrat, recommended Olguin and submitted a written statement in support of his confirmation. She called the jurist “well-qualified, seasoned, and fair” and said he had been strongly recommended by the bipartisan committee that advises the Senate on district court nominations.
She noted his academic and professional credentials and his “stellar record” as a magistrate, including his success as a settlement judge, which the senator said was “very important in a busy district like the Central District, whose judges carry the seventh-highest civil caseload in the Nation.”
Feinstein also cited Olguin’s endorsements from Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, Sheriff Lee Baca, and the Los Angeles Police Protective League.
The senator also took the occasion to encourage the Senate to confirm three other California nominees who have cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee, including Alameda Superior Court Judge Jon Tigar and U.S. Deputy Attorney General Bill Orrick in the Northern District and Sacramento Superior Court Judge Troy Nunley in the Eastern District. .
“Each of these districts is in a judicial emergency according to the Judicial Conference of the United States,” the senator pointed out. She noted that the Northern District’s caseload exceeds the national average by 20 percent and the Eastern District’s by more than 100 percent.
“My state—more than any other—urgently needs us to take prompt action on judicial nominees. I am pleased with the progress we have made in the lame duck, and I very much hope the three other California nominees who remain on the Calendar will be confirmed,” the senator said in her statement.
Olguin has held his present position since 2001. Previously, he spent six years as a named partner in the firm of Traber, Voorhees & Olguin, where he primarily handled housing and employment matters.
From 1994 to 1995, he was the education program director at the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund. He was a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice from 1991 to 1994.
He began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Carl A. Muecke of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. Olguin received his law degree and an M.A. in 1989 from UC Berkeley and his B.A. with honors in 1985 from Harvard University.
Besides confirming Olguin, the Senate yesterday confirmed Thomas M. Durkin to be a U.S. district judge in the Northern District of Illinois, also by voice vote. Durkin is a Chicago-based partner in Mayer Brown LLP, specializing in white-collar criminal defense.
Copyright 2012, Metropolitan News Company