RICHMOND, Va. — President Barack Obama has begun reshaping the nation’s most conservative federal appeals court, one that has handled many high-profile terrorism and detainee cases and generally supported the anti-terrorism initiatives of former President George W. Bush.
Five of the nation’s 20 open circuit judgeships belong to the Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The vacancies — fully a third of the court’s 15 judgeships — make the 4th Circuit more ripe than any other federal appeals panel for a fundamental shift in ideology and increase the odds that the court will undo some of its recent rulings.
Obama started his makeover of the court with the nominations of U.S. District Judge Andre Davis of Maryland, whose nomination to the circuit bench by President Bill Clinton died in the Senate, and Virginia Supreme Court Justice Barbara Keenan.
Should they win confirmation, Democratic appointees will outnumber Republicans 7-5 on the 4th Circuit, with three more vacancies.
Nationally, there are 75 U.S. District Court positions open and 20 vacancies on the federal appeals courts. Obama has made nominations for seven of those appeals-court openings, including for two vacancies on the Philadelphia- based 3rd Circuit, also evenly split for the moment between Democratic and Republican appointees.
Many detainee and terrorism cases come to the 4th, which handles federal appeals in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina, because national-security facilities are concentrated in northern Virginia and because federal prosecutors there have had success getting jury convictions in such trials.
