Alaska now has 2 vacancies on the federal bench, and disagreements between Alaska’s senators about who should fill those seats.
The James M. Fitzgerald U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building in downtown Anchorage. last week, Alaska is down to just one active federal judge — risking delays for litigants and redoubling political pressure to fill a long-vacant seat.
The District Court of Alaska has five “senior” judges who are in semi-retired status with a reduced caseload, and a handful of magistrate judges assisting Gleason, Duncan said Friday.‘Abusive, oppressive and inappropriate’: Alaska federal judge lied about sexual misconduct, inquiry findsIt’s not yet clear exactly how having just one full-time judge will affect criminal defendants with cases in Alaska, said Jamie McGrady, the Alaska federal public defender.
The whole situation is unusual, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia and an expert on the federal judiciary. He said the descriptions of what Kindred was found to have done — including a sexual relationship with a clerk that he lied about to investigators — violated “all the rules the federal judiciary has about interactions between judges and clerks and any staff.
“I think it’s being condemned at the highest levels in the federal judiciary, partly because it’s an embarrassment, partly because of measures they’ve taken so far just have not proved to be sufficient,” Tobias said.James M. Fitzgerald U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building in Anchorage. Federal judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the full U.S. Senate for a lifetime appointment. But home-state senators play an influential role in the process.
In the interview, Sullivan emphasized that Kindred had not been his first choice for the seat. Sullivan had wanted Anchorage attorney Jonathan Katchen, then 43, to be appointed to the federal judiciary, but said he couldn’t get consensus on his pick. For at least 20 years, Alaska’s U.S. senators have gotten recommendations for federal judicial nominees from the Alaska Bar Association. Murkowski said that she had forwarded the names of two potential nominees to the White House. She said it was her practice not to name a nominee until they were then chosen by the president.Sen. Lisa Murkowski spoke in her Anchorage office on December 22, 2023.
A federal judge is a lifetime appointment that requires thorough vetting, said Sullivan, a former Alaska attorney general. He said Kindred’s resignation showed why the bar association’s vetting could potentially be insufficient with a poll of attorneys, an interview and nominees submitting their resumes.
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