James Harvie Wilkinson III

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James Harvie Wilkinson III
Wilkinson and Edward Roy Becker at a reception
Chief Judge of United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
In office 1996 – 2003
Nominated by	Automatic succession
Preceded by	Samuel James Ervin III
Succeeded by	William Walter Wilkins
Judge on Fourth Circuit
Incumbent
Assumed office 1984
Nominated by	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	John D. Butzner, Jr.
Succeeded by	Incumbent

Born	September 29, 1944 New York, NY

James Harvie Wilkinson III (born in New York, New York, September 29, 1944) is a federal judge serving on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. His name has been raised at several junctures as a possible nominee to the United States Supreme Court.

1 Early life and career
2 Federal judgeship
3 Writings
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Early life and career

Wilkinson was raised in Richmond, Virginia, and graduated from the Lawrenceville School and with honors from Yale University in 1967, where he was President of the Yale Political Union. He served in the Army from 1968-1969, and in 1970, Wilkinson made an unsuccessful bid for a Virginia seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, running as a Republican. He then attended the University of Virginia's law school, graduating in 1972. From 1972-1973, he served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell, an experience about which he wrote a book. His clerkship was followed by five years as an Associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, and three years working as an editor for the Norfolk's The Virginian-Pilot. In 1982, he was given a position in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

[edit] Federal judgeship

on January 30, 1984, after a brief return to the University of Virginia School of Law, Wilkinson was nominated to the Fourth Circuit by Ronald Reagan. Wilkinson was confirmed by the Senate on August 9, 1984 by a vote of 58-39.

From 1996-2003, he served as chief judge on that court. In 2003, Wilkinson wrote the majority opinion upholding the right of the United States government to detain Yaser Esam Hamdi indefinitely without access to counsel or a court. Hamdi was a U.S. citizen captured during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The decision was overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States.

With the announcement of Chief Justice Rehnquist's illness in the fall of 2004, many commentators listed Wilkinson as a potential Bush nominee to the Supreme Court. Wilkinson talked about his July interview with Bush in the New York Times, undermining his candidacy amongst the Bush inner circle.^[1]

In 2006, Wilkinson penned an article on Washington Post, castigating both the left and right on the issue of gay marriage. He wrote that the "American constitutional tradition" has been a "chief casualty in the struggle over same-sex marriage" and that marriage should be regulated through ordinary legislative means rather than "constitutionalize" it.^[2]

[edit] Writings

Wilkinson has written four books: Harry Byrd and The Changing Face of Virginia Politics, 1945-1966 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1968), Serving Justice: A Supreme Court Clerk's View (New York: Charterhouse, 1974), From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration, 1954-1978 (Oxford University Press, 1993), and One Nation Indivisible: How Ethnic Separatism Threatens America (Addison Wesley Longman, 1997).