From left, Judges Roger L. Gregory, Damon J. Keith and Andre M. Davis pose after sitting as a panel at the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. They make it obvious that the court is undergoing change. PHOTO: Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press
New look at U.S. 4th Circuit in Richmond
By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The faces of White judges stare at the bench from their framed portraits on the wood-paneled courtroom walls.
But the three judges hearing cases this day look far different.
They are all African-Americans — exemplifying one of the most obvious changes at the powerful U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.
Two of the jurists on this panel, Petersburg native Roger L. Gregory and Baltimore native Andre M. Davis, are current members of the court. The third, Damon J. Keith, is a visiting senior judge from Detroit. He was filling in because there are still two vacant seats on the court.
For more than two centuries, this court seemed to be a preserve for white male judges eager to maintain it as a strong bastion of conservative legal opinion.
Even the court’s home encouraged that impression. It is a Downtown building that housed the Civil War offices of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
But change has come.
Today, the court’s 13 judges include five African-Americans, three women and one Hispanic. They hear appeals from lower district courts in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and North and South Carolina, usually in three-judge panels, though occasionally as a full panel.
And it is no longer rare, given the current makeup, for the panels through the rotation of judges, to include all African-Americans or a majority of women.
“This court looks more like the rest of the country,” said Patricia S. Connor, the court’s clerk since the mid-1990s. She said she never doubted it would happen.
But others on her staff still speak with amazement at the new look that has developed, particularly of seeing three African-American judges together questioning lawyers in hearing cases.
Has diversity among the judges made a difference in the way the court rules?
“It’s too soon to tell,” said Carl W. Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law who follows the court widely known for the cordiality it shows to the attorneys who argue before it.
The court’s new era of diversity began during the early 1990s when the first white female judges were appointed to the court during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
It took until 2000 before Judge Gregory made history as the first African-American judge on the court, resulting from a temporary recess appointment from President Clinton.
His successor, President George W. Bush, ensured Judge Gregory received a lifetime appointment by nominating him again and securing Senate approval for him in 2001. President Bush went on to add two more African-Americans: Judge Dennis W. Shedd of South Carolina and Allyson K. Duncan of North Carolina, the first African-American woman, in 2002 and 2003 respectively.
President Obama has done even more to expand diversity during his tenure.
The five Obama nominees approved by the Senate include two more African-Americans, Judge Davis and Judge James A. Wynn Jr. of North Carolina; the first Hispanic judge, Albert Diaz, also of North Carolina; and another woman, Barbara M. Keeenan, previously a Virginia Supreme Court justice. The Obama nominees also have included a white judge, Henry F. Floyd of South Carolina.