Boyce F. Martin, Jr.

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Boyce Ficklen Martin Jr. (born October 23, 1935 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a federal appeals judge who has served on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals since 1979, when he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter. He served as Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit from 1996 to 2003.

Judge Martin received his A.B. from Davidson College in 1957 and his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1963. In 1963-64, he served as law clerk to the Honorable Shackelford Miller of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. He received a Doctor of Laws from Hanover College (Indiana) in 2006.

Martin served as Assistant United States Attorney and then United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky in 1964 and 1965. He subsequently worked in private practice in Louisville from 1966 to 1974. Martin served as judge for the Jefferson Circuit Court from 1974 to 1976, and then as chief judge for the Kentucky Court of Appeals from 1976 to 1979. During the 1970s he was involved in judicial reform efforts in Kentucky, which culminated in the passage of a revised judicial article in the state constitution providing for a uniform, four-tier court system. [1]

In 2001, Judge Martin was accused by some of his colleagues of violating Sixth Circuit procedural rules in the high-profile affirmative-action case, Grutter v. Bollinger. Judge Martin was never given a proper forum to respond to these accusations, and thus the matter has been closed, both by the 2006 “Breyer Committee” [2] and by the House Judiciary Committee.