Andre M. Davis

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Andre Maurice Davis (born February 11, 1949) is a U.S. district judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and a former federal judicial nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

1 Early life and education
2 Professional career
3 Federal judicial service
4 Nomination to the Fourth Circuit
5 Continued controversy over the Fourth Circuit's Maryland seat
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Early life and education

Born in Baltimore, Davis grew up in East Baltimore. His father was a schoolteacher, his mother was a food services worker and his stepfather was a steel worker, according to an October 12, 2000 article in the Baltimore Sun. He attended Phillips Academy for high school, and earned a bachelor's degree in American history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.^[1] Although he had planned to become a college professor, Davis chose to pursue a career in the law after taking an undergraduate course in constitutional law, according to the October 12, 2000 article in the Baltimore Sun. Davis earned a law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1978.^[2]

[edit] Professional career

Prior to law school, Davis served as an assistant housing manager and equal opportunity specialist with the Housing Authority of Baltimore City. After graduating from law school, Davis clerked for U.S. District Judge Frank Kaufman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland from 1978 until 1979. Davis then clerked from 1979 until 1980 for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Francis Dominic Murnaghan, Jr. From 1980 until 1981, Davis worked as an appellate attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. In 1981, Davis joined the United States Attorney's office for the District of Maryland as an Assistant U.S. Attorney until 1983, when he entered private practice. From 1984 until 1987, Davis worked as an assistant professor for the University of Maryland School of Law. He became a judge in 1987, when he was appointed to be an associate judge for the District Court of Maryland for Baltimore City. From 1990 until 1995, Davis worked as an associate judge for the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.^[3]

[edit] Federal judicial service

On May 4, 1995, President Clinton nominated Davis to be a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. The U.S. Senate unanimously approved Davis to the seat in a voice vote on August 11, 1995. In discussing his judicial philosophy, Davis told the Baltimore Sun in an article that was published on October 12, 2000 that "I want the loser -- and I know there's always going to be a loser, that's the nature of the beast -- but I want the loser to be able to say, 'I lost, but I was heard, and I believe that judge gave me every consideration in hearing my side.'"

[edit] Nomination to the Fourth Circuit

On October 12, 2000, President Clinton nominated Davis to be a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, to replace Murnaghan, who had died.^[4] The nomination was a part of Clinton's effort to integrate the Fourth Circuit, which up to that point had never had an African-American Circuit Court of Appeals judge. However, since Davis was nominated after July 1, 2000, the unofficial start date of the Thurmond Rule during a presidential election year, no hearings were scheduled on his nomination, and the nomination was returned to Clinton at the end of his term. President George W. Bush chose not to renominate Davis to the Fourth Circuit.

[edit] Continued controversy over the Fourth Circuit's Maryland seat

The Fourth Circuit seat to which Davis was nominated remains vacant to this day. President Bush unsuccessfully tried to fill the seat three times. During the spring of 2001, Bush intended to nominate Washington, D.C. lawyer Peter Keisler, a resident of Bethesda, Maryland, to the Maryland seat on the Fourth Circuit, but was blocked from doing so by Democratic senators Paul Sarbanes and Barbara Mikulski on the grounds that he wasn't sufficiently a member of the Maryland legal community^[5]. Keisler later became a nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2006 and the Acting Attorney General of the United States after the resignation of Alberto Gonzales in 2007.

In 2004, in an attempt to bypass the necessary approval of Democrats Sarbanes and Mikulski, Bush sought to transfer the open circuit seat to Virginia, which had two Republican senators at the time, John Warner and George Allen. He nominated Virginia resident Claude Allen, an African American member of the Bush administration, to succeed Murnaghan on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Allen's nomination was opposed by numerous liberal educational, religious, and racial groups, including People for the American Way, the NAACP, and the National Organization for Women^[6]. Because of the opposition of Sarbanes and Mikulski, Allen's nomination was stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee and lapsed on December 8, 2005. Bush chose not to renominate Allen.

On November 15, 2007, Maryland U.S. Attorney, Rod J. Rosenstein, a state resident, was nominated to fill the Maryland seat. Again using the excuse that the nominee didn't have strong enough Maryland legal ties, Mikulski and new Democratic Maryland senator, Benjamin Cardin, blocked Rosenstein's confirmation^[7]. Due to the opposition of Maryland's senators, Rosenstein had yet to receive either a hearing or vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee under Democratic chairman, Senator Patrick Leahy.